


Best Friend

by Shurely



Series: Salt and Pepper [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Therapy, Cat Companion, Dog Companion, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Nightmares, Plot Centric, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2018-12-12 03:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11728272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shurely/pseuds/Shurely
Summary: Takes place post-Old Soldiers comic.Unity Day - a celebration ripe for Talon's claws. Trouble is stirring in the City of Harmony.Soldier: 76 finds a companion in the darkness of Egypt. Together, they are drawn to Numbani's light.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The plot mostly carries on from my previous fic 'Pet Peeve', although 'Best Friend' should be understandable without having read it! Thank you so much to those who showed their support for 'Pet Peeve' - I have changed some of the dates and details from it, so it's not 100% faithful!
> 
> Regardless, enjoy!

A shotgun blast to his side. It figured that Ana Amari would be the one to heal it.

Ghosts, all of them – when he tried to tell her so, she sighed and turned her head. Might have smiled, but then if she did, it was probably at the photo in her hand that she'd plucked from the ground. He gave her that privacy, and turned on his heel to survey the shimmering air, thick with stirred sand, that focused into filtered red when the visor clicked and re-engaged.

An alert pinged to his left: Hakim's body. Unconscious. He walked over and gave it a nudge with his boot. A soft grunt. A vial glinted over the collar of his shirt.

"Worked on the pistol, huh?" he said, yanking it out and holding it up to the light. The old Amari tranquilliser concoction, if he remembered that chemical sequence from the visor correctly. Might have been a change in the formula somewhere, but he at least recognised the golden residue.

Her voice had mellowed in her age, cool as river waters, dry as the baked earth of the desert. "I thought that it might have a few more applications than just sending the new recruits to bed."

Ana flanked him and held out her hand. He dropped the tranquilliser into it. Photo must have been tucked away. His side twinged, still healing. He straightened his jacket, the right side frayed, and felt Ana's gaze sizing him up.

"I can give you another shot," she continued, and he glanced at her to catch her wry grin whilst she slotted the tranquilliser back into the pistol, "but neither you nor Fareeha ever had any patience with them."

The pistol hummed, and he saw it regenerating the liquid before she holstered it. The mirth remained in her eye. He bit back a grin.

"There are some things biotic rounds can't heal," he said dryly.

Ana huffed, pulling her own visor over her face. He stared at the design. The Shrike. Infamous - worth every piastre of her E£70,000,000 bounty.

"Ever the drama queen," she muttered, and gestured to the complex. "Hakim had a dozen bounty hunters enlisted at his beck and call - none of them very bright, but it won't take a genius to recognise the pile of bodies you've left at the front door."

He nodded, glancing at the entrance to the grounds that he'd scaled in under thirty seconds. Some security. Hadn't expected much anyway. The guy who just cashed everything in, exchanged bounties for credits, didn't think that his targets would bypass the hunters and go straight for him.

Ana started for the entrance, running up and then springboarding from the security console to clamber onto the ledge - twice the grace he'd had, same vigour as she'd always had. He rolled his eyes. The worst part was that he knew she wasn't even trying to impress him. Never had any need to.

It was why he'd sought her in the first place.

"I'm guessing that you want to scope this place out," he called, earning her chuckle.

"I'm guessing that you're too impatient to stick around," she said in retort, picking up her rifle and slinging it across her shoulder. "But you're welcome to join me."

"We need to talk."

"I know." Her visor couldn't obscure the gravity of her tone. She jerked her head to her left. "West of here, if you follow the street straight until the green bus stop, there is a building opposite it with a red door. A clinic."

He frowned. "The people?"

"I'm missing one eye, not blind," chastised Ana, cocking her head. "I know you're fond of the tough soldier act, Jack, but as flattered as I am of your faith in me, a real doctor can patch you up better than a biotic round." She lowered herself back onto the ground and dusted her hands. He hefted his rifle into both hands as she advanced, patting his shoulder, continuing on to Hakim's house. "You said it yourself: there are things that biotic rounds can't heal."

He sighed, casting one last look around - a battleground moments before - and then nodding to her. "Let me know what you find."

"See you in five," she replied cheerfully. "Try not to find more trouble on the way."

 

* * *

 

 

Atlas News had a quaint way of depicting global suffering: flashes of images, people posed just right, a little blood here and there, fire, collapsed buildings, smoke.

Never the raw banality of it: the everyday undercurrent of fear, business as usual under the blackened skies, the children running in the street with swollen bellies. And certainly never the multitudes: communities praying in halls, or laid out in the streets in pieces that cameramen angled away from. Just enough for shock factor: remind people to be grateful.

Jack watched the monitor on the wall, the sombre newswoman describing the local shootout at a nearby compound, and then looked out the window to where the shuttle bus rumbled by on choking fumes of petrol. A million miles away from modern technology.

The newswoman continued; he caught the name 'Hakim', followed by the loud tuts of the nurses inside the clinic over the groaning and chatter. Sounded like Hakim had it a long time coming anyway. Jack drummed his fingers on his rucksack, thudding on the barrel of his pulse rifle stuffed inside.

"Ahmed was studying at the Al-Azhar Faculty of Medicine before the university was attacked."

He looked up, and spotted Ana with her arms crossed, surveying the outside world with a gaze weighed with fatigue. Behind her, the nurse who had first turned him away but then, once Ana had arrived, tended to the gunshot, was still bustling between patients. Just another kind of casualty, albeit one lucky enough to still able to walk between ratty mattresses and chat to the others.

Jack caught Ana's eye, even through his visor, and her expression eased into a weary smile. She'd changed out of her armour; a tail of white hair curled out from her blue hijab.

"No need to add another wrinkle to your forehead, old man: Ahmed won't say a word. None of them will. Silence sells itself as a commodity when free speech means as little as the grains under your feet."

He shared the bitterness of her tone with a low hum. "But you have a safe house somewhere," he prompted, and she sighed, taking the seat next to him on the sofa.

"I'll let you know when you're ready to walk to it," she said, nudging him playfully. "I'm surprised you've come as far as you have. If it weren't for this clinic, my knees would have collapsed before I could save your ass."

She reclined into the worn fabric, the cushions barely padding the skeleton of the sofa, and admired the passers-by outside.

"I have some tea that you may like: chamomile and cornflower. Or are you still burning through vats of coffee to keep you alive?"

He couldn't help the short laugh that escaped him. "If _this_ -" He waved a hand over himself "-is what you call 'alive', then you can thank Ziegler. How _is_ the tea collection?"

"Flourishing. The benefits of international travel."

"Yeah, you've been a real globe-trotter, huh?"

"Yet work always comes first," she teased. She peered at his arm. "Yes, I noticed those canisters. No wonder you've been breaking into old Watchpoints."

He grunted, and she fell quiet, the clamour of inside and out more than compensating for their conversation. His side ached - nothing like the painful familiarity of rubbing shoulders with the world's best sniper. His skin burned with the alcohol that Ahmed had dabbed in - an ember to the shame and guilt roaring in his chest, stealing his air.

He'd let six years pass - better late than never, but in any other situation, he would have cursed his own incapability.

But it wasn't as though Ana had made it an easy task to find her. Janina Kowalska? Tricks like that. Standard Amari stealth. Old soldiers, hard to kill.

Not his words.

Jack looked up to see Ana watching, her expression amused. "I can practically see the gears turning in your head," she remarked, standing and helping him to his feet as well.

He hauled his rucksack onto his back, fighting a wince when it slammed against a sensitive string of muscle. She shouldered her own knapsack with a resolute nod.

"If we stay here any longer, I think your head will explode with all of the questions that you have."

"You know me, Ana," he said, a little too quickly. She paused, glancing at him.

"Yes I do," she said, and clasped his shoulder. He laid a hand over hers, swallowing thickly through the smouldering in his throat.

Then she moved her hand to ruffle his hair, and laughed as if she could see the pout that he'd automatically pulled, leading the way through the maze of mattresses to a backdoor. The nurses didn't even glance their way. Jack cast one last look at the monitor: some failed government initiative to tackle the drought.

"Come, then. This way. I've paid Ahmed for his service and discretion." She unlocked the door, entering a small courtyard crowded with children.

"How long has this clinic been up and running?" He followed her out, hearing the door slam and lock behind him, heat swarming him through his jacket.

The children ran up with wide smiles, shouting over one another to be heard, giggling and pushing whilst he and Ana crossed the courtyard. Jack noted the scratches on one girl's cheek, eyes shining with wonder; she was looking at him, trying to focus on where his eyes could be behind the visor, and he huffed to himself. Not the first.

Ana cooed at them, her smile drawing laughter lines on her face. Her gloves cleaned away the dust on their skin.

"Seven months, give or take," she replied over the happy noise, "and it's been tenuous at that."

They came to a back alley, and Ana waved to the children before they disappeared behind the walls of the courtyard. Jack traced the drawings made into the stone of the alley: stick figures, some more robotic than others, scratches tearing indiscriminately into the brick.

"A lot of small practices have sprung up since the attacks on the universities and hospitals."

"Omnics?" he said warily as they emerged into a main street, waiting for a group of women with earthenware to pass before they joined the flow. He bristled at the jostling bodies around him. One hand kept on the belt of biotic canisters at his hip. The weight of the rucksack kept him grounded.

"Thieves. Terrorists." Ana steered into another alley, stepping over the legs of those reclined against the walls. Jack felt the hunger of their eyes and quickened his pace. "Omnics, yes. The latter break down the doors and the scavengers come after. Steel doesn't need medicine, after all."

"Ain't ever been about what they need," he said, wincing at the rasp in his voice. At least the air filtered through his mask cooled his lungs. "After all these years, we never figured _that_ out."

They were winding through streets now, lost in a labyrinth of flashing cloths, undulating clamour, and pressing bodies. He spotted a familiar sign: A.I. IS OUR RIGHT. At least not blood this time, nor a pigment close to rusted iron.

He tore his gaze away, gritting his teeth to concentrate on something other than the bile at the back of his throat. A nearby road was clogged with traffic, the remnants of the market having dispersed and smoke pluming from the old machines, but he and Ana kept their distance. CCTV was a little more active along the main streets; of course, word about them would spread, but word itself couldn't track them down the same way taped evidence could. The sight of his visor was probably exciting to the backstreet civilians.

"So why bounty hunting? You said yourself that you weren't interested in the fight."

Ana chuckled somewhat humourlessly, and they finally drew into an empty alleyway. "Home used to be where family and friends were," she murmured as she unlocked a door in the wall. Jack surveyed the balconies above: clothes draped over, someone smoking on the third storey, gritty grey bricks. "When _that_ wasn't an option, I thought it best to come back here - to Egypt. The turmoil, the disasters..."

She hesitated, and he glanced her way. Her head was bowed.

"It reminded me that there's still much to be done, and if I could use my skills for anything, it would be to stop the criminals making it even harder for people to cope."

Inside was darkness, a single shaft of light shed onto the staircase where they ascended to the fourth floor. Jack's side protested, but he thanked his knees for not creaking as loudly as they had that morning. Ana would never let him live it down.

"There's a dozen other Hakims ready to take up his business," warned Ana. "But..." She stopped in front of an apartment, and cocked her head at him with familiar amusement. He raised an eyebrow. "We have to earn our bounty somehow."

Her apartment was sparse, but only the Amari touch could turn so little furniture into a space of safety and comfort. Ana settled her biotic rifle and knapsack next to a sun-bleached chintz armchair, and Jack followed suit, slinging his rucksack down, shedding his jacket with its lining soaked with sweat and blood. Then went the armour and gloves, the belts at his waist, and Ana tutted as he dumped it all onto her coffee table.

"I would have thought that you'd at least _try_ to be inconspicuous," she said, lifting a sleeve of his jacket. "Do I _want_ to know where you got this?"

"Take a wild guess - you'd probably get it right," he replied, grinning when she sighed and walked away.

The sleeve flopped back over the edge of the coffee table, singed and punctured. He eyed it, and his chest tightened with an unexpected pang of sadness.

"Don't think that I'm gonna be able to glue it back this time, though," he muttered. The snap of the cupboards: he craned his neck to see Ana preparing her kettle and tea set.

“Oh, God forbid you throw away the old thing." She unearthed two tins from the shelf. "If you weren't such a picky shopper, I would offer to find something else for you to wear instead. And no," she added, before he could speak, "you don't get a choice in what tea I make you."

He humphed. "I trust your judgement, Ana; I just don't trust my tolerance of the heat with an added cup of tea."

"Drama queen," she sang, mixing the leaves together. Outside, horns blared and dogs barked; Jack peered out from between the window shutters and spotted a pack of dogs racing across the road. Wild, homeless, fearless - he’d seen their type before. One mutt was knocked off-course; it didn’t stop, and neither did the driver.

"I loathe to say it, but there’s someone I know who can fix your jacket - as much as you _can_ fix something so garish.” He glanced at her, and she scoffed. "Don’t look so surprised. The people here are inventors: life is pieced together from the ruins of the wars and the snippets of government initiatives. I think that a simple jacket will hardly be a novelty."

He drew away from the window, scuffing his boots on the hard, dusty floor. "I’m not - it’s not-” he began, before catching his words. _Not surprised that people were resourceful_. Everyone was, one way or another. It wasn’t that. Ana’s movements slowed, but she continued to heat the tea: practised, unhurried, gentle. 

"Of course I care," she said softly, and he gritted his teeth. Done it again - hurt her again. Off to a bad start. "Now sit down and stop fussing. I'll handle it."

"As usual."

She hummed. "As usual."

He swallowed, running a hand over his visor before unlocking it. "Thanks, Ana." His words stirred the dust floating in the air, caught in the stripes of light.

"I mean my word," she said, her sincerity warm and full. "I've got your back. I'm not sure where your path across the globe is taking you, but I'm sure there's a reason to it - and that the name 'Talon' is somewhere in the mix."

"Somewhere," he agreed, aware of Ana's sudden frown. He joined her in the kitchen, the smell of tea strong in the musty air, setting the visor in reach onto the kitchen counter. "There's more to it than them."

"More than Talon?"

"Are you surprised?"

"I'm tired," she said flatly. He grunted. "And I know you are, too. Like I said, I'll follow you on your path - but there better be an end to it."

"Or what? You'll plant a stop sign in my way?" he teased.

Ana raised a brow. "I'll beat you with one if that's what it'll take."

He sniffed. "I don't take main roads anyway."

"At least you have _some_ sense."

Jack watched the steam rising from the kettle in soft translucent curls, suppressing a flinch when there was another loud horn from outside. When he glanced at Ana, she had her arms folded and her gaze was vacant.

"Where do we start?" he said, breaking her out of her trance. "You, or Hakim?"

Ana tucked a curl of white hair back into her hijab, rubbing her forehead in the process. "You know about the one they call Widowmaker."

"I know." His throat went tight; her scream still haunted him. Still, he choked out, "I'm sorry."

It sounded as pathetic as he felt, as pathetic as her consoling pat. He ground the words between his teeth - _you disobeyed orders, you weren't fast enough, you died and it broke Overwatch apart_ \- but he let the grains roll on his tongue, because to aim them at Ana would be to target what little was left of the world’s humanity.

"I've been keeping my eye on Talon, in particular Widowmaker." The kettle whistled and she took it off the heat to drown the tea leaves in their china. When she set the kettle down, he was surprised at the anger colouring her voice. "I'd been tracking her - what happened to Tekhartha Mondatta, I should have stopped."

It was his turn to lay a hand on her shoulder, and she looked at him; the hairs on his nape pricked at the fury he saw in her eye, the danger in its darkness.

"I should have followed my instincts, followed my leads, and travelled to London. I vowed not to hesitate twice. I thought that I was making a rational choice in staying."

She sagged, and he stroked a line down her arm, remembering the motions that she herself had taught him in those quiet moments years ago when he'd been consumed by the same grief. "But I understand now that it was uncertainty that convinced me to remain here," she said. Her voice hardened. "This is war, without a doubt - and what is a war without soldiers?"

"So you let me find you," he said.

"You've been busy with your own reconnaissance, so I gave you time." She handed him the cup of tea with a smile. "Tell me what you think."

Jack relaxed at the fragrance - chamomile, like she'd said - and took a sip, if only to appease her scrutinising look. "Tastes like hot water."

"You like it." Satisfied, she raised her own cup, and he rolled his eyes before copying her. "Let's take this to the sofa. I'm too old to be hoisting myself up onto the countertop and gossiping in the kitchen."

"But not too old to be infiltrating a mercenary compound?" he retorted good-humouredly, bringing his tea and visor with him to the armchairs. "Pretty sprightly for your age."

"Yoga," she explained primly, sitting on the armchair furthest from the window, "and lots of vitamin supplements. What about you? I didn't miss the mountain of bodies that you left in your wake back there."

"Well, all that stuff they pumped into me during the SEP better be good for something. But I'll leave the acrobatics to you all the same."

“We caught Hakim unawares.” She set her cup onto the corner of free space on the coffee table not occupied by his jacket and then reached for her knapsack. “He’d been communicating with Talon for three months, sending several of his top associates to assess the Helix Securities Anubis Facility’s infrastructure.”

Jack knew what came next: a certain private enforcement unit had garnered the world’s attention with their heroics, the eulogies of the fallen soldiers and civilians summarised in a neat paragraph beneath protracted outrage and diatribes. Accusing Egypt of harbouring more rogue A.I.s and omnics. World panic ever rising – the Second Omnic Crisis drawing closer. Volskaya Industries sprung from the event with renewed vigour: better defences on the way.

But one name had stood out – one hero, one security chief – and he could almost hear it haunting his old friend as she pursed her lips and brought out a tablet.

“They were planning to hijack the Anubis God A.I. into an electronic portable cache – this.” Ana stared pointedly at the coffee table, and, heaving an aggravated sigh, he brought his things off and onto the armchair. “Thank you.”

She laid the tablet on the surface to project a holographic set of blueprints, and he studied the concentric shapes of the design, interlocked with ports and a control interface.

“I can only imagine the disaster of trying to accomplish this, let alone what they could cause once they had it. We must locate and destroy it.”

“It wasn’t stored at Hakim’s compound?” he asked.

She scoffed. “They wouldn’t trust _him_ with it.”

“Then who-” He stopped. Resentment, old and resinous, set his joints into place. Ana picked up her cup and blew the steam from her tea; he thought he saw reminiscent wisps of black unfurl from her lips. A part of him bowed with resignation, unlocking the messy amalgam of memory and emotion tucked at the back of his mind and filed ‘Reaper’.

Reaper. Should’ve known that he would be haunted, one way or another, but maybe it was just Jack’s charm that he should be plagued day _and_ night. Should’ve known that the ghost would take the form of his guilt. It was a pretty solid shape, after all.

Reaper. Right. A gaseous, parasitic mercenary killing ex-Overwatch agents across the world. A marionette who rasped with the voice of the dead. Historic murderer. Talon sympathiser. Shotgun extraordinaire.

Enough to rival Reyes.

Playing with memories that weren’t his to have, toying with Jack. Bringing them together. Jack focused back on Ana. Taking them apart.

“What Hakim _did_ have at his compound was this.” She flicked away the blueprints to a series of post-excavation reports, approved by the Egyptian government stamp. “They predicted a breach. The weak points of the A.I.’s security were already on paper, yet conveniently buried in obscure government archives.”

“They?” The look in her eye told him that he already knew.

“Do you not remember the technicians that the UN flew in when we first quarantined the Anubis A.I.?” Jack nodded, and Ana continued, “Under the UN’s directive, they maintained it, eventually passing it over to the Egyptian government and then Helix Securities. Relegating responsibility after Overwatch’s fall.”

“I guess they didn’t have a scapegoat any more to blame it on if something screwed up.” Jack hummed. “Didn’t trust the A.I.’s silence, so they found a new one.”

Ana gestured to the reports. “With good reason. These reports here were buried under admin: the archaeology team remarked on the technological interference, claiming that some of the omnics malfunctioned around the site. It could have been an administrative error, or inside or outside influence. But the end result still stands. These reports haven’t been accessed in years.”

“So that’s why no one saw the A.I.’s breach coming. Figures it all comes down to the paperwork.” He skimmed over the names on the reports, looking for anyone familiar. The name ‘Amari’ was signed at the bottom of one – all jagged lines, not Ana’s cursive. Still, he gave her a chance to gloat. "How come the A.I. never fell into Talon's hands? Thirty years is a long time to leave a WMD on the back burner."

Ana grinned, settling back with her tea. "We both know Helix Securities owes its reputation to one employee in particular."

"The Amari name hasn't lost its shine," he agreed, warmly enough for her to chuckle over what must have been heartbreak.

Ana had never wanted a soldier for a daughter; she'd thought it best to raise Fareeha with the capability to defend herself and around a group of people tired of war - except for Reinhardt. God knew what the old Crusader was doing nowadays; the last Jack had heard, he was travelling with Brigitte, worming their way through central Europe.

There’d been a news article - flashed up a few weeks ago, a spark of adventure and excitement in the form of a bunch of scavengers being flushed out of a German town, courtesy of outsider intervention clad in Crusader armour.

So yes, everyone tired for war except Reinhardt. Yet somehow, they had all found it in themselves to keep fighting, so was it really that surprising that Fareeha had enrolled with Helix Securities, filled with Reinhardt’s ideals of justice and Torbjörn’s paternal wisdom and Reyes’ execution of military command?

Somewhere out there, Security Chief Pharah was shouldering responsibilities that Ana had tried to discourage. The newspapers had admitted it, but ink and holograms couldn’t equal the weight of Fareeha’s actions: that she had saved the local communities from the god A.I., but in doing so, had also prevented further access to it. Saved the world. Only the Amaris could uphold a record like that.

"So why didn’t the UN interact with the A.I.? They had the opportunity when we had our hands full with Overwatch," he said, sipping his tea when Ana looked pointedly at his cup.

"Similar to before: accountability. But don’t get the wrong idea: they had plans.”

“ _Plans_. Sounds dangerous,” he said dryly. “Couldn’t imagine anything scarier.”

Ana raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you mean other than virtual weaponisation into a virus to strip any and all databases across the world, shut down omnics, and establish a technological overlord? I don’t know, Jack: you should pose that one to Talon."

Jack nodded. "Then it's a good thing it was disabled."

He didn't like the long, disbelieving hum that Ana drew out. “The portable cache still remains, and it’s in Talon’s hands. Until recently, it was my priority.”

He sighed, and spoke the word one that they’d both been skirting around, sharks around fresh blood. “Recall.”

Ana stiffened. Her mouth puckered at the taste of the word, as if she'd been the one to form it, and then she brought a comm unit out from her pocket. He huffed and brought out a phone. Bright words, urgent letters in all-caps. Ana squinted at his screen, where another agent's name was glowing in lieu of his. He shrugged.

"I wasn't invited," he said.

"So you stole her invite?"

He glanced at the screen; the name stared back, accusing. "Not me. I was given it."

Ana's lips moved as she re-read the name and ID number, her eye widening as it clicked. "London, a week ago."

"The exact same."

"Both Monika Ozols and her daughter were found desiccated."

"I know."

She scowled. "Gabriel and his games.”

He ignored her mutter and nodded at her comm unit, earning a fond smile from her. “Yours?”

“An old friend. She’s settled down now, doesn’t want to fight when she has a family to take care of.”

 _That_ had never stopped Ana, but perhaps that was the irony of it. He paused, and then drew out a small, metal disc with an unlit circle in the centre, placing it in the same palm as Ozols’ phone. Ana made a noise.

“What is that?” she said, peering intently over the rim of her cup.

“I don’t know. It came with the phone. It’s not a peripheral – doesn’t attach to any computers that I’ve tried. Figured it opens something. Probably personal.”

“Have you tried going to London?”

“If I did, it wouldn’t be without you. Besides, the phone says that there’s a meeting in Brussels in a few days for the recalled Overwatch agents.”

“And we both know that we’re not going,” said Ana flatly, “so I fail to see what is holding you back.”

Jack downed the rest of his tea, and she pulled a face, shaking her head with disappointment at his lack of delicacy. “What’s there to see? You saw the pictures in the press: Ozols’ safe room was ransacked. Whatever this fob controls-” He tossed it to her; she caught it with one hand “-it won’t be left at the crime scene. The police will have confiscated what’s left.”

There was also the obvious: the game. Reaper’s breadcrumbs were usually a lot larger, a lot fleshier, and led in circles and crisscrosses, playing dot-to-dot with Overwatch’s insignia. But this was just perfect: an innocuous trinket to burn a hole in Jack’s pocket until he was forced to bring it out and pass it round. Surprise: look where it had landed. Ana rolled it between her fingers, and he wondered whether he should snatch it back. Too late. It would have happened, one way or another, he reasoned. Reaper always found a way.

It was then that he caught Ana’s grin. “When were _you_ the pessimist of the group?” She tucked the fob away. “Leave it to me, Jack.”

“The cache-” he began.

“Is still a priority of mine,” she said evenly, standing and taking his cup. He nodded his thanks, took his visor into his hands instead and cleaned the sand from the corners with a nail. Ana placed their cups into the sink and leant against the counter. “Consider this a warm-up. If this is Gabriel’s intent, then our choices are limited regardless.”

He didn’t realise that he’d been clenching the visor until he loosened his fingers. He turned to the window, where a cloud of birds danced through the sky. “You know it’s not him.”

It wasn’t silence – the outside traffic was too adamant for that – but it was the nearest thing to what Ana was aiming for. He rotated the visor in his hands and drew circles with his thumb where the eyes would be, then slid over the slope that would cover the nose, clearing dust from the cheeks – until he completed the tracing of a skull. His insides twisted, squirming like a nest of snakes unveiled from their den.

“Who are you trying to persuade?” said Ana finally. He scowled at her tone. She gazed intently at him. “We’ve all seen death, Jack; we’ve walked along its cusp. Now, I don’t know if Reaper is the footprints of Gabriel’s trail, or Gabriel clinging to the edge, but we cannot-”

“It’s not him.” Jack dropped the visor onto the armrest; when he twisted to meet Ana’s eye, his side ached. She caught his wince, but he continued, grating through the sudden burn in his throat. “Gabriel Reyes wouldn’t murder ex-Overwatch agents in cold blood.” Ana opened her mouth, but he pressed on. “I was there when the Blackwatch allegations came out, Ana; I think I have a damn good idea of the sort of things that happened in Blackwatch under my nose.”

“So why weren’t you there for him?” she snapped.

Easy. Ana Amari could make _time travel_ sound easy, and put Winston to shame. It was easy for an arbiter to walk from A to B, from Overwatch to Blackwatch; it was easy to deliver messages, sentimental pieces that he knew would never have come from Reyes’ lips after the promotion. Before, maybe.

Maybe, he thought desperately, humouring the echo always at the back of his head.

But all that mattered was that Ana had had it easy, meeting them face-to-face without ever seeing the shadows and their knots and knives.

No knives now – no, just a shotgun to the side instead. Six years ago, he would have begged for it had it meant an early escape to the freedom he had now.

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” said Jack gruffly. “The UN was breathing down my neck at every opportunity, waiting for me to fuck up; they had Reyes and I wrapped around their little fingers before we’d even shaken their hands.”

Ana made a noise as if to protest, thought better of it, sighed, and then said, “If you don’t think that communicating with Gabriel – I mean conversation, not your famous yelling matches – would have been healthy, then you’re not the commander I knew. The Jack Morrison I knew was the most expressive man I ever met, and yet he and Gabriel could move together like clockwork without ever saying a word if the need arose.”

Jack humphed. “That time’s long gone, Ana.”

She lifted her chin. “I know: it’s in the past. But to learn from our mistakes, we have to look back and face our shadows.” She walked over, scooping his jacket from the coffee table and folding it into her knapsack. He narrowed his eyes at her. “The sooner this awful thing is repaired, the sooner we can leave,” she explained. “Behave whilst I’m gone. If you touch my tea collection-”

“I probably won’t see my jacket again, will I?” he finished, forcing a small smile.

“Oh you will.” Her own smile was wicked. “I’ll personally cut it into threads and string you up with it.”

He chuckled. It was almost in pieces anyway. “Noted.”

He watched her leave, and the growing ache of realisation – this was Ana Amari, this was his best friend, she was alive and just as sharp as ever – burned in his chest when she looked back, her expression soft.

“It’s good to see you, Jack,” she said.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” he replied, and she saluted, closing the door behind her and leaving him to bake in the half-furnished living room, palms slick with sweat and head pounding.

 

-

 

They were playing a game: Jesse McCree's hat, on a bold adventure through Watchpoint: Puerto Madryn.

When Genji had flashed by, Jack had almost spilled his coffee. What was the competition _now_? Still betting with McCree that he could outpace a bullet? Athena had said nothing; all those he’d passed in the corridor had said nothing.

The moment he went to scratch his head, hunched over reports, he’d jumped so hard that he almost risked his coffee again. They needed to find a better outlet for Genji than allowing him to relocate the hat onto the Strike-Commander’s head.

The hat was smooth as plastic in his hands; inside was metal. He put it back on his head and felt it burn into his scalp. It wasn’t designed for him: one day, Gabriel had disembarked the transport aircraft with a stooped figure by his side, their face hidden beneath the very same hat’s brim as they set foot on the runway. The rest was history.

It was where Jack could find him now. There was a shortcut out the window; he tackled through the bulletproof glass, gut swooping when he dropped three storeys, and came up in a roll from the spongy concrete. He swallowed down the humid air – it had been raining a few hours ago – and walked into the fog, clothes clinging to his skin. The hat cinched tighter.

The concrete was cracking beneath his feet. He held his head up, eyes on the prize. The dark shape ahead seemed a little small for the usual aircraft. The edges were blurred – but that was just his eyesight failing. He activated his visor: on.

Off, on.

Off. On.

His throat went tight, and he forced his hand down to his hip holster. Lighter than usual. Had Torbjörn taken it in for upgrades again? Must have left it in his desk. He glanced down, looked at the empty space where his sidearm should have been, and was distracted by molten red scars beneath his feet. His hands were trembling now. He missed the leather of his gloves.

The fog smelled bad, like the time he’d left the apple pies in the oven for too long back on the farm and Gabriel had turned round to swat the air with a towel-

Or the time when he’d waded into a playground of omnic carcasses, ozone and chemicals and rubber blocking his sinuses-

Or the time when he’d lit his first cigarette and stuttered on the smoke, head spinning-

Whilst he staggered through fire-

And the bodies kept piling-

And the ground split into-

Fire fire heavy rebar concrete pain leg hands gun bullet smoke throat scream heat fire Reyes _Reaper_ -

He awoke in a flush of sweat. He gulped down air, he kicked the blanket into a corner, he wiped his brow. The armchairs’ fabrics were soaked; he’d slept sitting up, feet now freed from the blanket that Ana had spared. His thoughts swam sluggishly through the mire of fatigue and instinctive terror. Light peeked through the slits of the shutters, causing his visor to glow where lines cut through red. Animals wailed to the city.

The phone declared it almost four a.m. The loneliest time to be alive. Jack massaged his chest to cajole his heart, whilst the rest of his body awoke and seized with the after-effects of its position. He gave it a minute to settle, for the pain to subside into a low thrumming, and then reached for his visor.

Holding his thumb over the right ear shell, he finally relaxed when the display burned into life. Repeated the motion to deactivate, set back down. Ozols’ phone could go away now, too; he didn’t need to be tempted to delete the inbox any more than when he’d first picked it up.

Swivelling to the side, he scooped up his boots, because Ana had given them a very stern look before he’d settled down into his makeshift bed. Her bedroom door was open; he stared at the floorboards that she’d offered when he’d laughed at the chintz armchairs. Her bed was out of sight. Her rifle probably had a comfortable spot under the covers.

He glanced at his rucksack, held the thought, and then dismissed it.

Ana’s foresight was a gift that kept paying; her trust was invaluable still. The keys to the apartment sat on the coffee table in the absence of his jacket – he half-expected an admonishing note tacked on – along with a foil of analgesics. He packed both into his trouser pockets, and then he was on his feet with his pistol secured to his thigh and his eyes still searing from phantom heat.

Outside, the night air chilled the lingering sweat through his clothes. His head throbbed, and his side with it, embers dancing in his eyes, the ground set oblique beneath his feet. The alleyway was near solid darkness: a thousand other alleyways, a hundred other junctures in time, and always the swelter of nightmares to scald him. He emerged and headed towards the flood of streetlights.

Local delinquents loitered along the main road; they glanced his way, and he glanced theirs, and they exchanged the silent acknowledgement that he was armed and minding his own business – for once.

It was when he looked up at the darkness unfolded in the sky, the speckled stars, that he consoled himself with one truth: he was free. He had an obligation, yet he was free. The weight of his pulse rifle was stowed where he knew someone could protect it, and his jacket was in someone else’s hands. No more Seventy-Six. Just Jack, walking off the tremors in his body and replacing the memory of ash in his lungs with the air swept by the light breeze.

He followed the main road as it curved towards the desert, noting a red bus stop on his way, aware of the rustling of bushes and trees. _Reaper_ – an intrusive, but topical, thought. He gave autonomy to his feet as he mused on what he’d seen, parsing that old shitshow into workable chunks.

If Ana was right – God help them all, but _if_ she was – then Reaper knew everything that Reyes had. The key fob’s absence was heavier than he liked. The hideout in Dorado had never been secure, so why had he been surprised? It wasn’t that, he reasoned. Somehow, by some miracle, he’d come this far without throwing the fob away, and now Ana wanted to investigate it.

Reaper must have seen – or at least heard – what happened in Dorado.

Jack attributed the sudden stress on his heart to the shock of hearing the strange whining nearby, and walked on.

Six years of ample opportunity, and Reaper suddenly insisted on a game. Jack wondered where – if – they’d intersected at any point, after the explosion, before Dorado, when there was only one goal for Jack and grief had fuelled him more than conviction. He wondered if – why – Reaper had seen him and deemed him interesting enough to torment.

But he knew the taste of shame: it had the tendency to ferment more often than not, and the thought of the spectre bearing witness to Alejandra’s narrow escape from Los Muertos was a rotting pit in his already tenuous dignity.

He’d hesitated. Between chasing Los Muertos and saving a girl from a grenade, he’d hesitated. And he knew that was one pulp of regret that would sour his conscience until his grave.

So if Reaper really had seen that, then Jack wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know whether Reaper had appeared out of spite or kinship.

Yet despite her anger at herself, Ana still bore the same burden, having hesitated twice and both when faced with Widowmaker. Look at Ana, her grace and her resolve, fighting in the face of her failures.

She believed that Gabriel Reyes was still there somewhere. It wound Jack’s head in circles just to consider it.

He stopped and spun on his heel as soon as the edges of his vision fogged with the memory of black smoke, head throbbing with each charge of adrenaline. Blinking twice was the cure. He rubbed his hands together, dried them on his trousers, and then traced his way back the way he’d come.

The whining echoed from his right; he peered down the alley just as he passed. Just as his shadow fell into it – a pre-emptive gambit, making his move for him – the whining stopped, petering into snuffling and then smothered by the trees’ sighs.

The drop in his gut was uncomfortably familiar. Jack unholstered his pistol and crept after his shadow, straining his ears past the ambient noises for the source of the whining. His vision remained clear, and the only creak of leather was his boots. A thousand different alleyways – now a thousand and one.

Ahead was an archway, and he paused before he walked under. The breeze played with the trees and bushes outside the alley, but the slight flagging of the surrounding rubbish bags persuaded him that _this_ sack in particular should not be shuddering so.

He crouched down and nudged it with his pistol. It huffed, uncurling outwards to watch him with dark eyes, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Just a dog. After the promotion, Reyes had thrown a report into his face, coldly succinct whilst Jack recovered and scanned through it: animal bombers, bred for aggression, inserted or fixed with explosives, and then loosed on Overwatch agents. The medical bay had seen a spike in the number of cybernetic prosthetics issued.

Yet people now still called it ‘Overwatch’s glory days’. Funny: he thought they’d chosen their side long ago.

He waited, letting the dog sniff him and eventually lower its head back onto its paws, and then replaced the pistol with his other hand. Back in Indiana, another farm down the road had had three dogs, all boisterous and generous with their slobber.

Jack scratched through the short lawn of fur, nails catching on the faint bumps of its ribs. Mud caked his fingers when he withdrew and sat down; he sighed and resumed his grooming, warmth sapping from his back and into the brick behind him.

Jack paused when the dog lifted its head again, and without his shadow to shroud it, he catalogued the wounds drafted across its face: one short, perked ear missing, pink gashes around its muzzle. It shuffled clumsily, and he drew back, dusting his hand on his trousers.

It followed his hand and bumped its nose into his leg. It would be undiplomatic to decline such an invitation. He patted its muzzle and scratched its chin for good measure, flexing his wrist to find new spots as the dog pressed itself more eagerly into his hand; its tail whipped his side, fanning dust his way.

The warmth of its fur was…nice. Its bulk suggested that it was probably supposed to be a stout kind of dog – one that Reyes or Ana would have rolled off from their knowledge of dog breeds. It nudged into his petting, huffing excitedly, and he checked its scruff for a collar indent. Found more scars instead, scoring through its fur. Most of the time, it was humans that saw more warfare than animals. But here, according to Ana’s observations, was a good contest to that statement. Better to just pity both sides than to fuss about it.

Hadn’t Angela Ziegler suggested dog therapy at one point? Or had that just been one of McCree’s frivolous recommendations, scribbled at the end of his employee feedback forms? Or had it been that TV show that he’d caught Reinhardt and Torbjörn sobbing over?

He might have shed a tear or two as well. Nothing that anyone could prove, however.

With that, he gave the dog a final rub between the ears, and then stood up. His side complained, his back creaked a little, but at least the chill had soaked into his skin and cooled the burning in his blood. One hand was warm; it was also covered in grime and saliva from the dog’s licks.

The dog in question was staring up at him, tail still wagging.

“Sorry, buddy,” he said. “Ain’t got any treats for you.”

The dog watched him tuck away his pistol, and its tail slowly stilled.

Wherever it had been, wherever den or kennel it had endured, it was better out here, with the freedom to run and almost get run over and starve and scavenge. He walked out of the alley with his head lighter but heart heavier.

He passed the red bus stop and surveyed the road ahead. The delinquents were gone from the street corner; the only eyes watching him were a rat on its hind legs, which darted across the road and out of sight past other apartments.

The alleyway into Ana’s apartment was to his left; habit demanded he check both ways before crossing, and he, in turn, feigned habit as his excuse to glance back at the alley where he’d left the dog.

It stood at the mouth, still on the pathway, head ducked and sniffing the ground. He slowed, scuffing his feet against the pavement, holding its stare when it turned its head. What kind of old man was he, getting kicks out of petting strays? He scoffed to himself.

He took out the keys and braced himself for the stairs up to Ana’s apartment. Forget biotic emitters: he’d need heat packs at this rate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tea inspiration comes from [here](http://www.adagio.com/signature_blend/list.html?userId=584297) which is super rad - I definitely recommend checking it out! Inspiration for McCree's adventurous hat comes from [here](http://heronfoot.tumblr.com/post/148140421526/travelling-hat)!
> 
> Hit me up on [tumblr](http://samiltonbattmann.tumblr.com/) if you wanna say hi or you just appreciate a good meme :D


	2. Chapter 2

“Enjoy your stroll this morning?” Ana set her tea down to receive the plate of omelette that Jack passed her way, humming appreciatively as she gave it a sniff.

“Did you have to wake me up with a screaming kettle?” he said, raising an eyebrow. Tiredness hedged in the corners of his mind; his back was still tender. “I ain’t getting any younger – these old bones need rest. Let me have my comfort while it lasts.”

“I’m not the one who offered to make breakfast, despite apparently not living off fresh food for six years.” She cut a slice, and he paused. She pulled a face. “God forbid, it tastes like _omelette_.”

“You like it,” he said, grinning when she gawped with amazement. “But by all means, help yourself to the MREs.” She followed his gaze to the rucksack on one of the armchairs, and her lip twisted with exaggerated distaste. “There are hash browns in there somewhere.”

“Oh, how tempting. Take a seat, then, _old bones_.”

He dropped onto the stool next to hers and began on his own omelette. It had been twenty minutes since she’d placed her knapsack on the counter, conveniently visible from every angle in the room, and he caught her eye as he chewed down his breakfast. She shrugged.

_Record-breaking_ – that was how Gabrielle Adawe had described Ana’s character, what felt like eons ago. She had kindly omitted the large constitution of stubbornness.

He groaned, jabbing his fork at the knapsack. “Go on, then. What’s in the bag.”

“What bag?” said Ana innocently, and sipped her tea.

“I thought you said you weren’t blind?” he shot back.

“And I thought you weren’t either.” She dragged the knapsack over. “All right, close your eyes.”

“I’m blind either way, aren’t I?” he said wryly.

“You’re a downright spoilsport, that’s what.”

She pulled out a familiar red-white-blue jacket, folded into a crisp square, and magnanimously handed it to him. The colours popped as it fell open, the right side seamlessly reconstructed. He bobbed his head approvingly as he ran his hands over the clean leather – two words previously contradictory aspects in his mind, but then trust Ana to prove him wrong.

He held up the jacket, the smears of red catching his eye. He looked at Ana. "You didn't," he said flatly.

She laughed, low and throaty. "Lighten up, old man. It will wipe off."

He huffed to himself and scraped a nail through red, cutting through the paint that had drawn the '76' into a sloppy '69'. “Maybe I can pull it off,” he mused. “Soldier: Sixty-Nine – missionary in the streets and missionary in the sheets.”

Ana wheezed halfway through eating her omelette whilst he carefully drew his jacket over his shoulders.

“Well, Ana? Think that my alter-ego will have any chances at stopping Talon?”

“I dare you,” she gasped, “to leave it.”

Jack grinned. “Careful what you wish for. Talon won’t be able to recognise me now.” He waited for Ana to wipe her eyes before clearing his throat. Something seemed to be stuck. “Thanks.” His throat was a little dry, that was all. “That was pretty prompt.”

“I don’t do things in half-measures, Jack – you know that. Anyway, you should be proud of the addition; I think it’s a nice touch.”

He clapped his hands decisively. “Well, if I have Ana Amari’s approval, I can’t get rid of it now.” He met her eye, noticed the glint in it, and sighed. Trust her to have another trick up her sleeve. “What else? Do I need to shake spiders out of the collar?”

She smirked. McCree hadn’t gotten his roguishness from nowhere. “When I left here, there was a dog outside the door. I don’t suppose you would know anything about it?”

In truth, Jack was impressed than surprised. To resist the smell of street food being served along the main road just to wind up at Ana’s doorstep was real dedication. Give the dog a medal and be done with it, a part of him said. He didn’t have a medal, per se, but not everything golden was cold and inedible.

He wasn’t that hungry anyway. Breakfast was a luxury that he’d only expend for Ana.

“What kind of dog?” he said, tilting his head with private satisfaction when she rolled her eye.

“Like you would know even if I told you,” she said, shaking her head. “It probably came from one of the stray packs. Reminds me of that coyote Jesse and Genji wanted to domesticate.”

_That_ had been exciting – and also hell, don’t forget hell, because when those two paired up, it was an unstoppable force _and_ an immovable object versus the rest of the world.

“I think the only reason their petition didn’t get through was because most people had already had enough of animals from adopting Torbjörn’s kittens.” Ana cooed at the memory, gazing into midair. “Fareeha wanted three. She could barely hold all of them.”

The Watchpoint had gone wild – the most excited it had ever been, bar the night that Jack called all drinks on his tab because he’d been giddy and hopeless, _hopelessly in love_ – when Torbjörn had come through security with them. Naturally, the _only_ reason he got them through security was because he’d helped in _making_ security.

“Did Angela have the rat at that point?” Ana chewed on her omelette thoughtfully. “It all blurs in my mind – although not the part where Jesse soiled himself when he saw it on Angela’s shoulder, no, I’ll never forget _that_.”

_Down with animal testing_ , she’d argued. Angela had revamped the entire medical department in more ways than one. Whenever a paper report came in late, it was always the rat’s fault.

“I wonder how the boy Jesse’s doing,” murmured Ana, and he dragged himself out of memory, back to where Ana’s nostalgia warmed the air, smelling of the sweet matcha tea. “He must be a man by now.” She turned to him, smiling wistfully. “How much do you want to bet that he still has the belt?”

A withered part of his soul croaked at the memory. “Some wagers I don’t make,” said Jack, “because there’s only one answer.”

Ana laughed. “I thought so, too. I wonder how they’re all doing.”

For all of the animal experiences that she recounted, a particular hole in her memory broke the warmth. It had to be deliberate for her to neglect mentioning, even though it had been funny for her at the time, amusement lighting her eyes like the sun did now even when she shook her head in disappointment, Reyes gasping in mock horror – only joking, Jack had been assured, in a not very assuring tone – whilst Jack flushed with shame.

Dog: that was what his mind had registered at the time. Service dog, yes, but ‘dog’ was synonymous with ‘pet’ and none of the neighbour’s dogs had ever protested being given a ferocious belly rub.

He’d thought that the harness was funky.

The blind owner had forgiven him; the civilians had laughed. Twenty years later, circumstances wouldn’t have been as kind.

“You finished?” he said, and Ana blinked out of her reverie as he nodded at her plate.

“ _You_ haven’t,” she replied, narrowing her eyes, “so I fail to see why it matters. It’s not as though I can leave here and do my own recon without your creaky joints tagging along.”

He stood and held his plate, still mostly full with omelette. “Out of curiosity, was the dog still there when you were coming up?”

Ana gave a non-committal hum. There was no rush, no need to look desperate – although it could run away in the time that he was dallying about…

He found a bowl, filled it with water, balanced a handful of baladi bread onto the omelette plate – much to Ana’s protest – and then carried everything out of the door. No rush, really.

“Be patient with it!” Ana called after him.

 

* * *

 

The darkness had indeed belied its size; how a stocky dog like that could curl up so small, he had no idea. Morning light struck the stripes into its fur, brown markings and pink scars intersecting. Its asymmetrical head turned his way. He swallowed at its drooped brow, the wariness in its stance. Unsurprising.

The people walking past the alley were probably scoffing at the old man crouching down and tossing pieces of omelette towards a stray. Jack himself was scoffing at the fact that he was the old man crouching down and tossing pieces of omelette. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, or die trying, or something equally as macho.

The dog, in turn, was scoffing, snapping up the omelette, each piece thrown closer to Jack. It took its time – fair payback – always looking at him, to the chattering people passing the alleyway and the vehicles that rumble in between, and then to the ground. Throw, wait, watch. Rinse and repeat. A scared child, coming out from the rubble. A broken omnic, fighting its programming.

He held out both hands: one empty, one holding a chunk of flatbread. The bowl of water sat just in front. Even in the shade, sweat tickled Jack’s neck. The dog ducked its head, tasting the water first, then diving in whilst Jack proffered the flatbread when he depleted his supply of omelette. It was only when the dog’s tongue ran over the bottom of the bowl that it lifted its head and eyed the bread, licking its lips.

Then it snapped it up, too, leaving a small piece between Jack’s fingers. He waited. It didn’t leave. No, it bumped its head into the hand that had held the bread, and he tossed the remaining crumb. Its gaze held his as he petted its head, and then its flank. The tail-whip started up again.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

He twisted round, conscious of the grin that had split his face, and Ana chuckled. Her eyebrows were raised, the corner of her mouth lifted – Ana Amari, impressed.

She smiled back at him. The dog demanded his attention with a whine. He rubbed its scruff, laughing to himself, dodging the shiny tongue aimed for his face. Ana clucked her tongue, and he stood with the bowl, plate, and the rest of the flatbread. The dog nuzzled his leg.

“Come on, then,” said Ana exasperatedly. “We’ll be gone before the landlord appears to fine us.”

 

* * *

 

Jack’s fingers were like pale prunes after scrubbing the dog down in Ana’s bathtub; Ana had graciously sacrificed her bar of soap, and together they’d combed through the dog’s fur, plucking out the obvious insects and feeding pieces of flatbread when the dog whined. The dog panted, eyes closed as Jack towelled her down, slowing his movements around her ribs and chest.

She kept trying to lick his nose. He mentioned this to Ana; she pointed out that some dogs had a taste for shit.

Not this dog – not on his watch. He dabbed around the bare space where her other ear should have been. Sure enough, whilst washing the mud from her legs, Ana had exposed the thin green line on the dog’s underbelly and declared her female.

“Dog fighters don’t usually take so much care to spay their dogs,” she’d commented, grimacing, “if at all.”

“Who would let her go…?” Ana’s sharp glance had told him that he’d voiced the thought aloud. He’d returned to lathering with the soap.

“A fool who doesn’t deserve such a brave creature. Those scars? Humans _and_ animals. It’s a miracle they weren’t infected.”

Jack had had to smile at that. “She’s a toughie,” he said, scrubbing her nose and earning a barrage of licks.

Ana had laughed at that.

Jack slung the towel half out of the window, suspended to dry in the light. “C’mon, buddy.” The dog shook her fur and leapt out from the bathtub, claws clicking on the tiles. She looked up at him with round, dark eyes, and he figured that she was a dog care handbook’s every grievance embodied, down to the very tips of her helicopter tail.

He tugged at the idea that had taken root in his mind, having grown on ashen hopes that took too long to crumble. It _was_ a nice reprieve while it lasted. He could add it to his list of good deeds – that small thing at the back of his mind reminding him that a concept called humanity existed and the world would be a better place if he started showing more of it.

The dog tailed him out to the living room and trotted over to the bowl of water that Ana had refilled. She leant on the counter, scrutinising him as he approached and found the remaining stack of flatbread, taking it with him to the armchair.

“She likes you. It’s a good thing you found her.”

He meant to voice his agreement. The grunt he made sounded less amiable.

“I can hear your thoughts from here, Jack. It’s not impossible to take a dog on public transport.”

“I didn’t know Overwatch invested in a telepathic serum,” he replied, too dryly to cheer her scowl.

“I’m not saying that there aren’t complications and a lot of risks involved. But look at her.” He did look at the dog. She lapped up the water, spilling it onto the floor. He glanced back at Ana, profoundly unchanged. “I say it’s fate,” she said peaceably.

He snorted so hard that Ana crossed her arms. “You think God’s started giving a fuck about old geezers like me?” he said. “You’re the one with all the contacts; you can find a new home for her.”

Ana narrowed her eye and pursed her lips. He baulked at The Look. The I-have-an-idea-and-it’s-for-the-greater-good look. Overwatch had given her too many occasions for her to wear it. His side ached with pre-emptive dread.

“Service dog,” she decided with a click of her fingers. His heart sank. She must have remembered. This was his atonement, then.

“Her scars,” he said flatly. “The last time I checked, service dogs don’t walk around looking like they’ve just come out of a fighting den.”

Ana held up a hand. “I hear you, and I raise you the power of makeup.”

“You’d need a goddamn bucket of concealer,” he grumbled, stroking the dog’s head when she came over and rested it on his thigh, her wet muzzle soaking through the fabric. “Probably wouldn’t be good for her skin either.”

He fed her some more bread, calculating how much meat it would take to fill out the space between her ribs and build up muscle. Not that he _needed_ to consider it.

“You’re just jealous that it won’t be lathered all on you for your press conferences. Besides, we need to take her to a vet anyway to clear up what we can.”

“And I suppose a vet will be able to replace the lost fur?”

Ana groaned, pushing away from the counter to head towards the bedroom. “Fine. Just let me pull out my spare wig.”

“I knew that plait was fake,” he muttered, earning a punch to his shoulder as she passed him. He stood, waddling his way out from being cornered by the dog to tuck the rest of the bread into a cabinet, before spotting Ana waving him over.

The dog overtook him; he entered the bedroom to see her sniffing round, whilst Ana found her tablet from her bedside. Jack surveyed the small, rectangular room, cooler than the kitchen and living room on account on its western face. A place for everything, and everything in its place, from the pens on the bedside table to the knapsack barely visible under the bed.

Except the bullets on the desk. Light spilled onto the paper and glared off the scattered bullets. The original Strike Team had absorbed verbal Egyptian Arabic after a few months of Ana’s presence; Jack had never been able to wrap his head around the characters, however.

“What are you writing?” he said. The dog went for the bed; Ana pushed her away. She fell with a huff, almost offended, and then Ana’s gaze flickered over to him, distracted.

“Oh,” she said. “That.” Jack shifted his weight in the pause that swallowed her words. Ana nodded, approaching with the tablet’s screen glowing. “An apology. An explanation. More importantly, you should be aware of this.” She offered the tablet.

There had been a hundred articles after the failed robbery of the Doomfist gauntlet from the International Overwatch Museum. By the fourth report, it was the same questions, the same banal fanfare.

“What about it?” he asked, following the train of light streaking across the screen from the holovid. He sucked in a breath when Widowmaker’s bullets flew too close to the two kids hiding behind an exhibit. Tracer’s smile wavered – just for a moment, a split-second that was a lifetime to her. He’d always joked that she’d go so fast one day, she’d leave everything behind. He hadn’t banked on her training as being part of it.

But credit to where it was due: they did manage to mar his statue in the fight.

Ana must have caught his frown, for she hummed sceptically and pointed her finger into the middle of the tablet, breaking his line of sight.

“They were after the Doomfist gauntlet,” she said, tapping the screen to draw him back to a gaudy tourist website. The country’s flag was in the corner. Jack raised his eyebrows at her.

“I know,” he said blandly. “So what’s this? Numbani’s Unity Day?” He scrolled through the article. “Yeah, I remember.” A dozen different variations of one gauntlet were stamped into a pretty montage. “A Doomfist exhibit with a dedication to Overwatch, huh? They better not dredge up those old photos of us.”

“Who on earth _ever_ decided to put you into the public eye?” teased Ana, stepping away.

He hesitated, glancing at where the paper had momentarily escaped his attention. “You didn’t answer my question,” he accused, without heat.

“I did. You’re just not good at deciphering the obvious.” She stood by the desk, reverently – fearfully – touching the piece of paper. “Don’t try to distract me. The Doomfist has been exposed for too long. Talon must be desperate to take it in broad daylight.”

Jack gritted his teeth and waved the tablet as example. “Winston should have known. Patterns and projections – he predicts these things like second nature. I thought having Athena as his personal assistant might have kept him on track.” He huffed to himself, and then, when his words echoed in the silence for a little too long, looked at Ana. She snapped out of her own reverie to catch his eye. “This doesn’t make a difference to our plans,” he said warily.

Ana huffed, hands on her hips, feet planted. “Plans? We haven’t decided on anything yet. You know about the A.I. cache. I know about Ozols’ key fob. Yet Talon is after the Doomfist gauntlet. It’s in transit now to Numbani for the Doomfist exhibit.”

“It’d be better to keep it in motion,” he mused.

“That brings me onto my next point: the key fob and getting to London.” She brought the fob out and flicked it around her fingers. “I don’t know what Gabriel is playing at-” Her glance was sharp “-but I don’t like us holding onto it for any longer than we have to.”

“Right. That’s why we can’t bring the dog,” said Jack. “How can we infiltrate with a dog at our heels? She’ll wreck the mission, one way or another.” The dog in question trotted out to the living room.

“I’m not saying that we do bring her to London,” said Ana coolly.

It was That Look again. He scowled.

“I’m saying that _I_ go to London, and you two go to Numbani.”

His heart leapt into his throat, and he snarled with the force of his thudding pulse: “No. We’re a team. That key was given whilst I was in Dorado when I was alone – Reaper meant it for me and me alone.”

“All the more reason why I should take care of it,” said Ana, walking out of the bedroom. He strode after her, nails cutting into his palms. “Gabriel is expecting _you_. If you’re not there _entirely_ -”

“He’ll have a backup,” he said impatiently. Ana went to the fridge and brought out a bottle of cold water and refilled the dog’s bowl from the sink. “And you’ll need me for it. We’ll go together, Ana. It’ll be faster. We’re leaving as soon as; I’ll wire you the money-”

“Jack,” warned Ana. She’d had it easy so long that she’d forgotten what was hard. He lifted his chin. Order, cohesion, diligence – they were soldiers; it was time they acted like them.

“Find the tickets,” he said, sliding her tablet across the counter. She sipped from her bottle of water, gaze never leaving his. “I’m going to the nearest vet or kennel – whichever’s nearer – to lose the dog.”

He found his visor on top of the coffee table. It clicked as it re-engaged. He co-ordinated his breaths – cooler by the second – as he registered the wash of red. Chemical formula of tap water in the dog’s bowl: below safety standards. Structural integrity of the apartment was measured at eighty-six percent; the crevices in the plaster within his field of view probably didn’t do it any favours. Animal and human tracks on the floor.

“Jack, listen to me.”

He shouldered the rucksack slower this time. His side was grateful for it. Its voice was quieter, a memory of the ache.

“We can’t afford to both go to London. The Unity Festival is a siren call for Talon; it’ll take days to investigate the city for their presence, let alone what damage they intend to wreak. We don’t have time to hop between Europe and Africa.”

He paused, strapping the last of his belts on. “I know.”

Ana glared at him, her eye bright with fury. “If Talon plans another attack, then it will take more than Winston and Lena to defend the city, should they even respond in time.” She flung an arm out, gesturing to the world around them. He flinched. Just habit. Nothing serious. “There isn’t anyone else. It’s true that whatever this key fob safeguards could be vital, but Numbani’s threat is _real_. I’ll eat my hat if Talon doesn’t show their faces.”

“We buried your hat,” he said dryly. Ana’s face froze. Some things didn’t bear mentioning. He straightened – took the stance that had grieved him during the funeral, all in a line, Reyes beside him and breathing heavily through imperceptible tears. “It was one of the few things we had left of you.”

“That beret probably deserved more honour than I did,” said Ana. It was his turn to freeze, incapacitated by the bitterness that pricked at his resolve like a pin at a balloon. “I swear, I’ll dig my coffin out myself, find the hat, and chew it like a goat if I need to.”

He set his jaw. “Be my guest. But you can do it after we’ve found just what Reaper is so eager to show.” The gloves chafed the sensitive tips of his fingers as he pulled them on. He clapped his hands together. “Where’s the nearest vet?”

“Don’t do this, Jack,” retorted Ana. “Stop being such a stubborn arsehole for once and use your head.”

Stubborn asshole – those weren’t her words. Not originally. Jack shrugged. He let them be shared.

“I expect you to get the tickets by the time I’m back.” He scanned the living room, and called out, “C’mon, buddy. Let’s go!” He whistled for the dog.

A growl answered – long and guttural. Jack sighed and whistled again.

He whirled round and caught neck muscle in his hands.

Teeth snapped an inch away from his visor. Claws dragged down his front. He spun with the momentum, gripping tight into heavy flesh, dropping to kneel.

The dog’s eyes bulged. Saliva flashed on her jowls. He pressed his weight into her ribs, and she thrashed. Her feet were like sledgehammers into his stomach. His visor blinked with a stream of information. He pushed down. A vial gleamed from where it sank into her neck.

Like a clockwork toy grinding to a halt, the dog arched her back one last time. Then she slowed, paws twitching, eyes glazed. After a heartbeat, she dropped her head.

“What the fuck,” spat Jack, hot with adrenaline. He kept his hands on her head. “What the _fuck_.” He rounded on Ana. “Ana.”

“She’s been trained,” murmured Ana, brow creased in concentration. She knelt next to the dog and retrieved her sleeping dart. “Your whistle triggered her.”

“I know.” He waited, and then stood up. “How come – of all the dogs-”

Ana humphed, replacing the tranquilliser in her pistol, and then tucked the pistol back into its holster. “You’re lucky that you were wearing the visor. I was sure that she would maul you.”

“She needs to be put down.”

“She needs to be taken care of,” said Ana angrily. One and the same, he wanted to argue. “The vet will put her down; the kennel will put her down. She won’t have a life if we don’t give it to her.”

“Whistling, Ana,” snarled Jack. “That’s a fundamental part of dog training. Even I know that.” He glanced back at the sprawled body of the dog, her chest rising and falling. “She can’t go out into society. Even the slightest sound could trigger her.”

“We need to train her,” said Ana.

“We don’t have the _time_ – you were just arguing that.”

“She needs someone to take care of her-”

“You being a hypocrite?”

“Enough!”

He faltered. Ana stood tall, hand resting on her holster, the hard lines and scars on her face framed by her hijab. The eyepatch stared at him, a void sapping his defiance, whilst her eye raked him into a heap of nerves – and he dropped his shoulders, acknowledged the command. Jack Morrison had given up power – so why would Soldier: 76 know of it?

“It’ll be easier to take the dog with you on the hypertrain from Cairo to Numbani,” she said evenly, “than to board a plane. She goes where you go. Teach her if you can, and find out what precipitates her aggression.”

“You can’t have my back if you’re halfway across the world,” said Jack. His voice broke. He ground his teeth. Dammit.

Ana grinned. “It’s never stopped me before.”

The words came out wrong. _I’ve only just seen you back alive, in the flesh. You can’t go._

“And stop being so dramatic: London is only a three-hour flight from here. If you can secure a position in Numbani and investigate for unusual activity, then we can work simultaneously.” She sighed. “I know that this is abrupt-”

“It is. We still don’t know where that cache is, if Reaper does have it.”

“It’ll have to wait,” said Ana decisively. “Whatever this key leads to, it won’t spell my immediate doom; I have a feeling that he’s waiting for the right time and place to kill you.”

“Thanks, Ana,” said Jack, rolling his eyes. “A real comfort. I’m warmed by your speech.”

“What can I say? I never needed a teleprompter.”

There was a snore from the ground. Jack spared a glimpse at the dog, and his heart seized with fleeting pity.

“She’ll only make the missions harder,” he said, counting the stripes through her fur and forgetting instantly.

“Or she’ll be a welcome addition to our team,” suggested Ana. “She is what we make of her.” She pointed to the window. “The vet is two kilometres from here, if you follow the main road southeast. There’s no signage, but there will be half a dozen dog bowls out the front. A clinic, just like Ahmed’s.”

He huffed, still tensed. Everything sat wrong. Granted, it had been six years since his imitation of “command”; it wouldn’t have been so bad if it were just Ana, or just the dog – hell, it would have been ideal if it were just him.

Times had changed, though: he’d sought Ana, and now he had to suck it up. Going to London was disadvantageous, but it was worse because he knew that Ana _knew_ that, she _had_ to know that, and yet what was she trying to prove? As for the dog, there was no practical reason for her, especially now that she could shred his arm if he let a tune slip between his lips.

“What do you expect from her?” he growled. “What could possibly outweigh the danger of bringing her along?”

“It’s not about me,” she said shortly.

Right. Pin it on him.

“Let the vet put her down, if that will bring you satisfaction.” Ana’s voice nipped harder than frostbite. “But this aggression is controlled. You saw Overwatch’s K-Nine units back in the day. Her commands should be standard.”

Still pinning it on him. He let her words mull into sour reluctance, the dog’s snuffling as she began to rouse.

“You can order my ticket for the hypertrain, then,” he said finally. “Better find a seat with a lot of legroom, ‘cause Fido here’s gonna get antsy. If you really want to do this, then I need to know dog commands in Arabic.”

Ana made a noise. “We need a name for her.”

He almost laughed. “ _That’s_ what you’re worried about?”

“Basic dog training, remember?” She activated her tablet’s screen and switched from the article. Already working – thinking ahead, away from the present.

“If she’s been trained, then she’ll already have a name.”

“Which won’t be too hard to change. Do you really need to wear all of that gear just for the vet?”

He grunted, readjusting his rucksack strap. “When I come back, we better be leaving.”

“And I didn’t even get to introduce you to my favourite restaurant,” lamented Ana. “I guess we can decide on a name later. Better start brainstorming. I don’t want to hear any ridiculous ones.

Jack stooped to wake the dog up, shaking her flank. “I don’t know – the name ‘Snoop’ crossed my mind once or twice,” he remarked.

“You are positively ancient.”

He had to snort. “I prefer the term _vintage_.”

“That implies a sense of class that I don’t think you can convey in good conscience.”

He looked at her with raised eyebrows, the fur shuddering beneath his hand. “Why did I think that you could ever give me an ego boost after all these years.”

The dog yawned as she rose, looking up at him and thumping her tail when he patted her head.

“Good dog,” he murmured. “Rise and shine.”

Her gait was a little unsteady, but those teeth were tucked away for the moment, and Ana provided him with a capped tranquiller that he kept at his waist belt. He narrowed his eyes when she hid her snicker behind her hand.

“It’s still on my back, isn’t it,” he said flatly.

“If it makes you feel better, no one took you seriously in the first place.”

“Like I said, a real comfort.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jack didn’t see many service dogs in his youth.
> 
> Hit me up on [tumblr](http://samiltonbattmann.tumblr.com/)!


	3. Chapter 3

Miracles could happen.

They just tended not to.

Ana had called it fate. Jack didn’t have a name for her yet.

Pisspot, for the mess she’d made on the train.

Chatterbox, for her reply to the conductor’s warnings.

Ana, for the unerring stare when he’d unpacked his sandwich, and her constant badgering, and her exhausting sense of humour – if it could even be called that.

A combination of all three was just the sort of nonsensical response to fate’s bullshit.

Her body bumped against his leg whilst she trotted along; people scattered as they walked through the station, Jack using his other hand to thumb through maps and routes on Ana’s spare burner phone.

Back in the day, he and Torbjörn had agreed that squinting down at a phone was just archaic, but if security – every corner, every checkpoint, lidless sight betrayed by their turning heads – weren’t already wary, he might just have tried his luck with his visor. Refurbished jacket included. Hell, all or nothing.

Sunset shimmered through the facets of the train station’s roof, where a flock of birds wheeled in an oscillating silhouette. Jack tugged on the dog’s lead when she darted towards another dog in the arms of a girl, as she posed next to a poster for a music concert.

Jack eyed the poster: familiar, to be sure, but he’d never seen it garner the sort of crowds that it sported now, teenagers and families with their phones in the air as if in prayer to the celebrity.

Lúcio – musician, revolutionary, hockey enthusiast. Fareeha would probably tune in for the latter. Touring in Numbani on Unity Day? Talon must have wet their pants when they found out.

Jack sighed to himself, which turned into an angry snarl at the man who bumped into his rucksack and almost caused him to stagger. The heavy pulse rifle hadn’t earnt its name for nothing.

The disassembled pulse rifle would be a bitch to reassemble, and he’d been seconds away from dozing off on the train, but he’d rather risk passing security just outside the city centre than staying onboard to reclaim the sleep stolen last night.

Still, security watched him, watched the dog as she barked and rumbled at the formless noise around her. Her scars were muted in brown organic paste from the vet; Jack had had to clean his hand on the inside of his shirt twice when she’d nuzzled up to him and he’d instinctively petted her back. By the end of the day, he expected nothing less than a shiny coat of fur, after all of the laudation that Ana made about the treatment.

The balmy evening air smothered all sensation from the air conditioning, cocooning him thicker than wool. Jack used a knuckle to push the sunglasses up his nose, avoiding the makeup covering his own scars, and surveyed the cityscape from the top of the stairs.

Coaches lined the kerb of the station, eating up streams of tourists whilst taxis circumvented them, only to jolt to a stop when an impatient group surged across the road and prompted a migration of tourists and locals en masse. The sunset seared them all red.

Jack flinched at the horns blaring from the road, and glanced down at the dog. She panted, lips pulled back into a tired smile, tucked against his side. He filled his lungs with the dry air, held, released, and then descended the steps to approach the city shuttle. His pulse still stammered with protest.

The best way to spend a six-hour journey with an unfamiliar dog? Research just what she was capable of, and how to control her.

Ana had given the first step. The Perro de Presa Canario. After that, the commands were standard, and had admittedly worked in reeling her in post-piss incident, and the diet was understood, and the cleaning regime was noted, and all of the mistakes that he’d made upon first meeting her seemed laughable as he’d sat with the crescent of the dog’s back by his feet, cramming as much information as he could from a dozen different websites and holovids.

He lied. The best way to spend a six-hour journey, unfamiliar dog or no, was in dreamless sleep. But miracles tended not to happen.

He boarded the shuttle – ’30 MINS TO NUMBANI, NON-STOP, ONLY 10 CREDITS’ – with his gaze level, the dog hopping on after him and ducking between him and another tourist. The woman in question pursed her lips at the sight of the dog, caught his eye, and then hastily looked away. Jack squared his shoulders.

The masses filled up around him, and he scratched the dog’s only ear; birth defects weren’t uncommon, but he appreciated the paste in stymieing any further scrutiny. A toddler squealed and reached for her, too, until his father ushered him the other way. He didn’t bother to meet Jack’s stare.

The doors to the shuttle closed and the floor vibrated beneath his feet.

Reyes had taught him the name of the trees: umbrella thorns. Jack held on to the nearest pole – still sweaty from the last group – and breathed hard through his nose. People pressed a little too close. Their breaths washed over his neck.

He rolled his head back, closing his eyes and following the shadows of umbrella thorns in his mind’s eye. Other images flashed: figures dancing with bullet holes, sharp shapes with one rectangular eye, a blossoming blue shield from a friend’s arm.

The savannah shook the shuttle, hot air dusting them from the open windows at the top. A tongue rasped against his hand, and he cracked his eyes open to peer at the dog, who had evidently found fault in his lapse of attention.

A young couple beside him laughed, their voices cutting over the shuttle bus’ thrumming.

“I can’t wait to see who Lúcio’s supporting act will be!” one said. “You really think there’ll be some sort of announcement?”

“I dunno, man: you heard about the riots in London?” His friend waited for the sympathetic gasp before continuing, “Yeah, I would be surprised if Lúcio _didn’t_. I mean, we’re at the centre of human-omnic relations, right? And Lúcio’s all about spreading that message, you know? I dunno, it’d be weird if he didn’t. It wouldn’t have to be obvious.”

“Hey, it’s not like he’d be kicked off the stage even if he did.”

“It’d get on the news, that’s for sure. But yeah, you’re right. I dunno. Let’s see on Friday!”

Jack had read the statistics; a concert was just the cosy little opportunity for Talon to attack – and by ‘little’, he meant the estimated one million people, unified under Lúcio’s evident love for music and equality. _One million people._ He felt sick trying to imagine the scale.

The irony of the attack, compounded with the London riots, would certainly hasten the Second Omnic Crisis. Convenient. Disastrous. What a fucked-up world, he mused, and closed his eyes again.

And opened them to the announcement over the shuttle’s speaker system, grainy and artificial, as the shuttle bus squeezed into a parking bay and cut off another bus that had intended to use the space.

Jack clenched his teeth as he yawned, shrugging his shoulders to help the blood flow past the heavy straps of his rucksack, and then turned to study the vista of skyscrapers, almost close enough to touch, and the flow of vehicles, omnics, humans, and animals.

The dog, who had been watching silently, decided to greet the outside world with excited barks. Some people jumped, before catching sight of her and laughing it off. Some frowned.

The toddler moved to stroke her again. The father looked hesitantly to Jack; he inclined his head, and the father loosened his grip on the toddler. The dog shied away for a moment, but eventually held still to accept the toddler’s hand petting her back.

The doors opened, and an omnic awaited them with a card reader and money pouch at their belt. They registered surprise at the sight of Jack and his dog by making a high-pitched “Oh!” and hesitating long enough to let Jack swipe his card and urge the dog onto the pathway.

Swarms of people occupied the streets, queuing outside gilded restaurants, hailing the taxis and buses, and weaving around Jack and the dog as he lowered his rucksack to don a faded Lakers cap.

The buildings gleamed pristine, burnished in the sunset over a city with a history mired in controversy. One individual in particular had advocated its message, even when she’d called for the omnics’ heads not two months beforehand.

If the map on the phone was right, then this was her dedication: Adawe International Terminal, interconnecting Numbani with the rest of Africa. Firm and professional, her resolve tested infinitely as she despaired with the original Overwatch task force. Torbjörn and Ana had been the only ones capable of cheering her whenever she came to brief their motley crew on the upcoming mission.

Jack had caught the news five years ago, still licking his wounds as he’d glanced at the TV: there’d been a hit. She still breathed today though, found her voice most enthusiastically received in North Africa. No one had caught the would-be assassin. Probably had something to do with the fact that said assassin could go incorporeal.

Jack called the dog to heel, and then began to walk along the street, bringing up Ana’s number on the phone. Cameras blinked as shadows and light passed over their eyes. He bowed his head, watching the dog as her ear swivelled and her head turned with each passing vehicle.

The four-by-fours hummed loudly, gliding over the solar road panels that flashed with speed limit signs, one blasting out electro-swing from its open windows. Jack almost missed Ana’s voice in his ear over the sound of it.

“I take it you’ve made it, then,” she said, amusement warming her tone as he cleared his throat. “How was the dog? Well behaved?”

“She’s good.” He ruffled the dog’s head, and she licked his hand. Paste clung to his fingers. “The train conductor made a fuss about cleaning up the carpet, but back in my day, we didn’t have chemicals that could clean up piss in a matter of minutes.”

“Of course! How could I forget? The nostalgia of piss-soaked carpets – one of my fondest memories.”

He snorted, guiding the dog around a line of young women. “What have you found?”

“In the half-hour that I’ve been here?” said Ana with a chuckle. “The supply of toilet paper was a pleasant surprise. There’s also a bag of frozen vegetables in the freezer. I’ll send you a picture of the view of Westminster.”

“How accessible is the route to the Metro Police Station?”

“One road has been closed off due to damage from the riots, but I’ve tagged a car as my escape transport. You should be glad that Numbani has a monorail.”

Jack peeked past the edge of his cap to spy a car passing overhead, and then shrugged to himself. “It’s packed here, though. A celebrity concert is going on this week. Lúcio. Has the city in a frenzy. I think half of ‘em are just here for him than for Unity Day.”

“From what I heard, the two go hand in hand. Lúcio’s music promotes exactly that: unity,” said Ana mildly. “The kids at home – Egypt – listen to him a lot. They would be extremely envious of your position.”

“If they think that they’re up to the task, they can replace me whenever they want.” He heaved a sigh, noting the shadows along the ground, and then clicked his tongue. The dog trotted by his side, slowed by the crowds on the piezoelectric pavements, as he followed the path that he’d memorised on the train. “I’ll be busy tonight. Might contact you, depending on what I find.”

“Stay safe,” said Ana, and then he disconnected the call.

 

* * *

 

 

Cities like these didn’t sleep, not when music threaded in and out of bars and restaurants, and the monorail’s whirring only stopped at midnight, to be replaced with the call of the wildlife and exploring tourists.

The light never set on Numbani; Jack studied the reflections of the signs and adverts on the glossy building walls, some refracted and indistinct from his angle, others a technicolour mirror.

He aimed to his left with his pistol just as something pale jumped in the corner of his vision. The cat in question stared with pale eyes, and he released a long, steady breath that belied the racing of his heart, holstering the pistol to watch it pad along the balcony.

It eventually sat down to lick at its ragged fur, unperturbed as Jack drew back from the balcony. Mosquitoes danced in the air, and he irritatedly swatted them away. When the cat didn’t budge, he glanced about him for his newfound companion – and bit his tongue to stop a whistle. Hesitated again when he fell short of a name.

_Basic dog training. A name_. He groaned to himself. Ana had a point.

As if attuned to a higher power, the dog rushed towards him anyway, barking loud enough to wake the dead – if the city wasn’t already intent on causing insomnia. The cat startled and scampered towards the end of the balcony railing just as the dog leapt up.

Jack caught her collar before she could bound over the edge.

“إسكـُتي!” he ordered, and the dog whined softly instead when he heaved her back down onto all fours. “قـَعـَد.” She flicked her ear, and he patted her rump. “قـَعـَد,” he said again, lowering his tone into a near growl.

She complied, not without glaring at the cat that spectated from a safe distance away. He, too, shot the cat a glare. It twirled its tail with a nonchalance that he almost envied.

The dog fidgeted under his grip, and Jack sighed, releasing her and looking away. The cat could share the balcony with the mosquitoes for the night.

“كـَعب,” he said, backing out from the balcony and shutting the door after the dog when she followed. The sound of music and chatter was muted from within the apartment. Drawing the blinds cut off the glimmering buildings – and the sight of the white cat.

The dog waited for him by his side, yawning as he regarded her. He gave her head a scratch, murmuring meaningless praise under his breath. He’d washed the paste off her face, but the ambient half-darkness still subdued the colour of her scars.

The dog took the sign to roam about again, making herself at home in the small apartment booked under the name ‘Jonathan Yates’.

Seventeen years ago, New Delhi, the same ‘Jonathan Yates’ had been the protective escort to an American diplomat on the behalf of the UN. Reyes had laughed and scoffed: _boy scout had forgotten how to use his legs after sitting on his ass for so long_.

McCree’s tone had been low but sombre, the two of them sitting in the medical bay whilst the gunslinger recovered from the bullets that had perforated his shoulder.

At the time, Jack had counted it a win for himself: going back into covert ops, seeing Blackwatch firsthand, right by Reyes’ side, the good ol’ days. Another chance, another shot at being the man that Reyes needed him to be – the man that Reyes deserved.

Funny how hindsight embittered the taste of victory, like the champagne that had somehow kept finding its way into his glass that night.

But Reyes’ side wasn’t his place any more. It had been filled in, moulded around the gunslinger that had even – jokingly – offered his hat if it meant that Jack would feel “more at home”.

Good kid. Jack had contemplated the offer by flipping the hat in his hands, McCree’s gaze burning into him until it was broken by the hat’s brim as Jack pushed it back onto his head. Only McCree could pull off a cowboy hat at a gala, Jack had teased. He couldn’t remember how McCree had replied, or if he’d stuck around in the medical bay long enough to hear it.

It had been a neat ploy, bringing Jack out of his office to trot around – just the sort of gratification to keep him satisfied, like how he himself now fed rewarding peanuts to the dog. He grounded himself back into the present by focusing on the dog licking the salt off his fingers, cataloguing the furniture in the room, sagging with gravity when he noticed that his spine had gone taut.

Speaking of food, it was about time for the dog’s chow – a sentiment with which the dog agreed by her impatient whines as he brought out the cans of tuna.

The can opener in the drawers took several tries to pierce the metal; the dog whimpered, butting into him as he managed to spoon it all out onto a plate. He rolled his eyes when the dog let out a small, mournful howl.

Mix in with the fish a crushed sedative that Ana had supplied, and it was now the prime example of a dish from a man who had no experience or resources to cater for a dog.

“إنتـَظـَر ِت!” She stood fast as he laid the plate on the floor, and dived in before he could even wipe his hands clean of the briny water. He couldn’t help grumbling. “Jesus, it’s not going anywhere.”

With that, he secured all of the windows and doors in the apartment, shouldered his rucksack, and then walked over to the dinner table – hardly larger than a stool, and about half as steady – to pick up his visor components.

He grimaced as he set the jaw piece snugly against bone; the ear shells clamped over his ears, securing the needles that slid into the concavities of the skin.

Sensory dissonance only lasted a few seconds, and then he flexed his jaw and went over the aural practices, allowing his brain to reconcile thought with speech, and speech with hearing via the neural conduits.

The visor clicked into place, systemising his field of view and indexing the furniture. The dog was licking the plate clean when he bent to rinse it under the sink. He tore sheets of kitchen roll and spread them out onto the floor.

“If you’re gonna piss,” he said to the dog, who quietly watched him, “do it on that.”

The dog pattered around on the sheets, ripping off a corner and taking it into the bedroom – as good a sign as any that she didn’t need anything else from him. The bowl was filled with water, the balcony was locked, the supplies were under the bed.

If someone came knocking, they’d find a drowsy dog and pulse rifle ammo. He could live with that.

He pocketed the apartment keys and left the apartment.

There wasn’t much that a cap could do to block out the glow of his visor, but he wasn’t the only one wearing strange clothing in the middle of the night. Hell, even tacking on sunglasses to his visor would have been tame compared to some of the outfits that people were wearing. But the temperate night air forgave their sheer tops, shorts, skirts – and lack thereof.

Omnics swaggered past with humans on their arms, laughter harmonising, and Jack veered away from the buildings. Various routes through the city branched off before his eyes; local radio frequencies chattered about Unity Day, the Lúcio concert, the Adawe Foundation’s “genius grant” winner Efi Oladele, and other minutiae of the presenters’ lives.

The longer Jack listened, the more his brow ached with his deepening frown. It was unnervingly alien. After all, the world was in turmoil: he’d organised his own vis-à-vis with Los Muertos, attacked wealthy conglomerates across North America, and yet Numbani still shone with life and emotion.

He had to wonder whether the people themselves could sense this and were thriving in the calm before the storm before something broke the peace. He wouldn’t blame them.

The visor had been shuffling randomly between radio frequencies, but it was the undulating squeals that made him cock his head and examine the information in the corner of his visor.

Encrypted, obviously. Signal was weak; it was localised somewhere more eastern. Jack bristled, heartbeat already leaping with premature excitement. He surveyed the street routes, selected one that wound east, and changed his course, mind racing with possibilities.

It could be the police, if he hadn’t already heard their frequency beforehand as they conducted an arrest on the other end of the city. Kids messing about with their radios? Lúcio was just one of the geniuses who could repurpose technology – a generation that surpassed his own.

Ana would get a kick out of it if it was actually Talon.

He walked for twenty minutes, monitoring the signal strength on his visor, half-expecting it to vanish because that was just his luck. The varying pitches of whines grated on his ears; it was almost the dog’s yowling all over again.

It was when the signal was strongest that he took in his surroundings: the garage courtyard in front, ‘Millennium Star Garages’ with English, Kanuri, Omnic, and a number beneath. The rest of the street caved away from the heart of the city.

It was likely just some car radio playing up. A false lead. Still, he needed to exercise his joints anyway.

Jack turned around, already mapping the route back to Adawe Avenue, when the barest flash registered on his visor. He glanced sharply over his shoulder, tensed his hand over the pistol at his thigh.

The cars in the courtyard gleamed under the moonlight. Some nice models, he observed – made sense to be out of the way to be repaired. A pair of CCTV cameras oversaw the front gate, leaving one corner unchecked that was practically begging Jack to vault over.

He groaned to himself, and turned back to the garage. Worse came to worst, he’d have a good idea of what car to buy when he retired, in that sweet dream where retirement was plausible and of his own volition.

Then he sprinted forwards and scaled the gate, the cold metal scoring white lines on his palms that disappeared under his skin’s flush. There were no complaints from his side wound any more, but his pulse rifle slammed into his back inside the rucksack.

He noted the three other CCTV cameras watching the courtyard, and mentally charted a path through their fields of vision to the side entrance of the workshops.

Talon must really be pulling out the budget if they were going after _these_ cars; Lena would be positively drooling if she were here now. Motor magazines were the Bibles of motels’ receptions, their fervour impressed into Jack’s memory enough for him to pull faces of approval at the latest models in sight.

The side entrance’s card reader beeped to his keycard – a testament to Blackwatch tech, also a rather incidental memento to his Yates persona from that goddamn gala – and his visor accommodated to the scant light.

The signal still rang strong, an inarticulate warning that needled at his patience, and he paused at the fourth bay in the workshop when the unusual, rectangular design caught his eye.

The flat shape of its bonnet would have made any manual driving exceptionally uncomfortable; he traced the indentation that marked where an object had sat – would sit. If it was anything like the other models in the garage, then Jack could see it on the streets during Unity Day, powered by the large engine at the back, parading through crowds. The sunny patterns on its ovoid wheels seemed a little too flashy for the average citizen to drive around in, even if this _was_ Numbani.

He opened the office in the corner of the garage with the same keycard and headed straight for the computer that activated at his touch.

Such unrestrained access would have made any criminal choke. Jack had certainly experienced the essence of three different aneurysms upon realising the keycard’s existence.

Liao’s infamous skeleton key, a peril to virtual security that had supposedly never passed beyond Blackwatch’s R&D wing. Records stated that only two prototypes had ever been made. Jack had jimmied his out of a Talon safe.

It corrupted the screen as soon as Jack used a connector to link it to a computer port, unlocking the garage’s database. He scanned through the folders – clients, employees, car models, orders – and brought up the current models in the workshop.

Bay Four, labelled ‘The Float’. Well, they hadn’t called him Sherlock in his younger days for nothing – granted, it had always been preceded by “no shit”, but he knew that his powers of deduction would manifest one day.

He opened the file, skipping past the schematics until his eye caught on the words ‘museum exhibition’. Understandable. Not part of Lúcio’s gig, then.

If it was, it was privy between the garage owners and the violently purple skull that flickered on a bed of broken code.

Jack snatched the skeleton key out and used the purple light from the screen to guide him out of the office, swallowing down panic as it dried his mouth and set his jaw. Now what would be the coincidence if the encrypted radio signal and strange electronic calavera – redolent of the vibrant Día de los Muertos skulls – belonged to the same person?

Better question: why go so far to protect a car?

He sprinted out of the workshops just as twenty different car alarms screeched in ear-piercing harmony, setting his nerves on fire. Floodlights washed the courtyard in excruciating yellow light. He vaulted over the gate again, rucksack bumping against his back, and ran to Adawe Avenue.

 

* * *

 

The cornfields were radiant at this time of year, when the sun gilded the ears and the flagging leaves gleamed as they caught the light in the breeze.

Jack led Gabriel through, thinking about how unattractive his snorting laugh must sound, how the sweat pouring from his brow had nothing to do with the heat, flinging a smile over his shoulder every now and then to catch Gabriel’s squint.

The air burned around them, and fingers of cornstalks and flame skimmed his calves. Gabriel’s cold hand eventually evaporated, but there was some comfort in knowing that he was still there, just in the ground. Jack would find him soon.

He picked up a shovel that had been sticking out of the ground and swaying with the corn, and then surveyed the area around him. Solid earth. Wet earth. It was red with clay and the setting sun.

Up north in the state, the reservoir would be perfect for picnics and dive-bombing – even better for watching the stars brand the night sky with white eyes.

Sweat drenched his back, and the shovel chafed his palms with familiar affection, until he struck wood in the soil and tossed it aside. He peered into the open coffin, and his heart dropped as he looked at the empty bottom, now gathering ash as it fell through the air.

His eyes stung, and he smeared the tears across his cheeks. Right. The reservoir. The reservoir could put out this fire; if he broke the reservoir, it would all be submerged. It was just beyond the cornfields, water sprouting from grass, and the waterfalls draining into the earth.

Then two shotguns mowed down the corn behind him. He screamed and ran. The dirt slipped under his feet, and his hands were woefully empty without the shovel, but he had been navigating these cornfields since he was a boy.

Tears salted his lips as he gasped for breath. He should have been going the other way, back to the house, where they would stand under the porch and find each other’s hands on the railing and laugh because it was so stupid and it wouldn’t last and the candles swarmed the wood and fire fire sweat dirt gravel handle gun trigger fire Gabriel _Reaper_ -

He awoke with tears in his eyes. The bed stank; he swivelled to the side, laying his trembling palms up on his thighs. His vision teetered like a spinning top losing its momentum. He ducked his head. Bile rose in his throat, making him choke, and he stood, staggered to the toilet, and dry-heaved until his stomach ached.

In padded the dog, snuffling his hair, the cool wetness of her nose tickling his scalp. He snorted, and gave her neck a rub. She wagged her tail appreciatively at the attention, before circling the spot next to him and dropping with a huff. Her flank was warm; he brushed his hand across scars and fur, salt and pepper.

He looked over to where the bed’s blankets were strewn over the bed, then at his rucksack, and laid his head back against the plaster.

His long, pained wheezes sang a name in the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation from Egyptian Arabic (garnered from various online dictionaries and websites - please let me know if they're wrong):
> 
> Heel = كـَعب  
> (Be) Quiet = إسكـُتي  
> Sit = قـَعـَد  
> Wait = إنتـَظـَر ِت


	4. Chapter 4

Local news played it as an ambitious young man trying to steal the keys to one of the cars. Ana laughed when he puffed out his chest.

“I’m not so sure about the ‘young’ part,” she remarked as Jack steadied the phone against the bottle of milk on the table, tilting it to view the video, “so don’t get your hopes up.”

“You’re right. Next time, I’ll just cartwheel my way through the garage. Then maybe I can be in the same league as sixty-year-old Ana Amari.” He shook his head when she grinned. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Whoever wanted you out of the garage didn’t pull their punches. They wanted you out faster than a rabbit from a stoat.” Ana rested her chin on her hand, her brow furrowing as she tapped the tablet. Her eye reflected the purple dot from his visor’s recording.

Jack hummed. “Do you recognise it?” he said, just as the dog came over and rested her wet muzzle on his thigh. He grimaced, looking at her to see her wide eyes at the meagre breakfast on his plate. “No,” he ordered. “لأ. قـَعـَد.”

To be fair, she did sit. Her pleading gaze remained. He huffed.

“The skull does strike a chord in my memory." Ana nodded. "She seems to be keeping you busy. Have you decided on a name for her?”

“Pepper,” he said decisively.

She laughed. “Because you can’t stand it?”

He stared at her. “Because of the colour.”

She stared back. “I’m not seeing any flaming red dogs around here.”

“What?”

“What?”

They caught on at the same time, Ana slamming her hand on the table as she guffawed and Jack snorting into his toast.

“I’d be shocked if you saw a flaming red dog _anywhere_ ,” he said wryly.

“Pepper.” Ana smiled. “It’s a good name. You didn’t take her with you to the garage?”

“She would have given me away long before the floodlights.”

“If there was someone nearby, she could have sniffed them out,” said Ana pointedly.

He sobered. “We can spend all day speculating what _could_ have happened – fact is this ‘float’ will be conveying the Doomfist gauntlet to the exhibit, according to the news.”

He drew directly onto the map that he’d taken that morning from the Numbani Tours International reception.

“It’s scheduled to receive the transfer from a government van and parade it to the museum, as you’d expect from a city that’s in denial about a Second Omnic Crisis.”

“If we manage to defend it from Talon, the people have nothing to fear,” said Ana evenly.

“That doesn’t excuse their ignorance,” he snapped.

Pepper – her name officially approved – jolted away, padding over to the open balcony instead. He eyed her to ensure that she didn’t leap over the railing, and then sighed. Ana raised her eyebrows sceptically at him.

“Don’t give me that look, Ana. Hosting a festival when a Siberian omnium has already killed fifteen thousand people? What about Mondatta’s assassination?” He shook his head. “You should hear them. It’s all water under the bridge to them. Instead, they’re frenzied about a supposed freedom fighter DJ who’s touring willy-nilly across the world.”

“This is why we’re here,” reasoned Ana. “To give them the ease to celebrate. _Talon_ wants them to cower in fear.”

“I’m not asking everyone to suddenly shut themselves in their houses and never pull a party popper again.” He ran a hand through his hair, conscious that doing so risked the very integrity of it. Ana never _had_ revealed any wigs to help his disguise. “It’d be better if the city took it more seriously,” he said finally. “But however they transport the gauntlet, it looks like someone is already aware of it.”

“Indeed.” Ana shifted, and held up a separate tablet. Jack squinted at it. “I took this from the police station last night, labelled under Ozols’ apartment.” He sat up straight in his chair. “The fob unlocked it to show _this_.”

Names, agent numbers, medical records – various I.D. tags rolled up the screen. Jack’s stomach dropped even before he lost count of the files. It didn’t matter who these people were; with such a collection of records, Ozols had been playing with fire. Someone had obviously caught wind of the smoke and sent in Reaper.

“There’s a large selection of ex-Overwatch agents, Blackwatch agents, and a fair few UN officials here,” said Ana, sweeping across the tablet’s screen. “And also this: messages between Monika Ozols and an unknown correspondent, discussing something called ‘The Float’.”

Jack’s blood ran cold. “You can’t be serious,” he hissed. “The same ‘float’ as in the garage last night? Fuck. It must be Talon.”

Ana pursed her lips. “As an ex-Overwatch agent, I do not find Ozols’ messages to be particularly…encouraging for someone of her status. There are more names and dates in these messages. She was tracking the ‘float’ as soon as it was commissioned to transport the Doomfist gauntlet. You could be right.”

“If Ozols was tracking the gauntlet, then she should have been here in Numbani than _hiding_ in London,” said Jack bitterly. Dots connecting, ink across the map. “Ozols was collaborating with Talon.”

“We need more proof. But it does make sense that it was Talon last night at the garage. The messages hint to some sort of activation code for an object – it could be the car, it could be the gauntlet, or it could be explosives.”

She studied Ozols’ tablet with a thoughtful expression whilst Jack sighed and scrubbed his face. The messages alone were condemning enough. The records in her possession further soured the situation. An ex-Overwatch agent with a record of specific individuals had many opportunities to use the information: exchange and barter, maintain connections, or as protection – herself or other’s.

If Ozols had been in contact with Talon, Jack didn’t suppose that she’d had much in way of physical reinforcements should Talon reconsider her contributions. Reaper’s attack was evidence of that. It stood to reason that Ozols had sequestered a selection of records in case of emergencies, as useless as it had been in the end.

There was something connecting all of those people together on Ozols’ tablet, something that extended across Overwatch, Blackwatch, and the UN. Jack had a gut feeling that it was something that Talon wouldn’t be too happy about if it had been exposed by Ozols.

He sent a silent, begrudging thanks to Ana for her foresight. Perhaps the tablet wouldn’t have even existed any longer if she hadn’t have gone to London to secure it.

“I need to read through these files again,” said Ana finally, placing Ozols’ tablet out of sight. Her weariness pulled at the creases around her mouth. “I don’t expect that Talon will make any pre-emptive moves for now, but I’ll be available should you-”

She was cut off by Pepper’s barking; Jack whipped round and scowled at the white cat sitting on the railing.

“Just one moment.”

He jumped up from his chair and stormed towards the balcony. “كـَعب!” he snapped, calling Pepper to heel. She turned round and whined, tail tucked between her legs as she rushed indoors, and he slammed the balcony door after her. The cat scampered.

“What’s going on?” came Ana’s disembodied voice.

He dropped back into his chair at the dinner table and massaged his temples. “There’s a damned cat that’s popped up again. Pepper doesn’t like it.” He glanced about him, hand ready to pet Pepper’s head, when he caught sight of her in the corner. Her head was drooped. He swallowed hard. “Ah shit. Give me a moment.”

“You know you shouldn’t yell,” chided Ana.

“I know.”

He plucked the bag of peanuts out from the cupboard and then walked slowly towards Pepper, smoothing his forehead with the back of his hand. Pepper licked her lips, but her eyes roamed over the whole of the apartment, never focusing on him for long. He shook the bag.

“Pepper,” he said. Gravel had a hard time sounding soft. He wore it through. “C’mon, Pepper. That’s it – good girl.” He knelt to her level and shook out a handful of peanuts. She thumped her tail. Jack raised his voice. “When will you be flying here, Ana?”

“Tomorrow. There’s something else – rumours that I heard near the Underworld.”

Pepper nibbled the peanuts from his hand, but jerked her head before he could pat it. He straightened.

“The Underworld?” he repeated, glancing over to the dinner table. “Something going on with the omnics?”

“Every day. But this might be more than the riots.”

He walked over, catching Ana’s hard stare, and dropped the bag of peanuts to rest both hands on the table. “Is it worth investigating?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if Talon pulled-”

“A double whammy,” he finished. Numbani and London – a two-fold slap in the face. “Shit, Ana.”

“ _We don’t know_.” She glared at him, crossing her arms. “It was simply rumour, and equivocal at that. Currently, the most imminent threat surrounds the Doomfist gauntlet. We must prevent Talon from accessing it. Such physical power would be devastating in their hands.”

“Get here as soon as you can,” he growled. “I’m gonna see just what’s in this museum exhibit and how vulnerable it is.”

“Do they allow pets in the museum?” said Ana, leaning back in her chair with a smirk.

He groaned. “Pets are never allowed.”

She clicked her fingers, same as in Giza. “Service dog. You still have the vest and documentation in your bag?”

“Ana,” he said warningly, the argument going unspoken: _Don’t start_. “I’ll speak to you later.”

“Stay safe, both of you.”

He looked over to Pepper, who had moved back to the balcony and was gazing outside. It would be strange, downright unusual, but it could work. Lucky that dogs could be cajoled a lot easier than humans.

“Pepper,” he called, keeping his voice light. “Pepper.”

She turned around. He picked up the lead from the table.

“Walk?”

 

* * *

 

Didn’t they make such a fetching pair: scarred as hell and wilting under the sun, inching up the queue to the museum that snaked outside?

Pepper’s tongue lolled as she panted and lounged in Jack’s shadow, melting into it like a puddle of chocolate. The badge on her black vest had deterred a few wandering hands; the rest had whipped back after Jack’s growl.

The Doomfist exhibit had yet to open, but Jack scanned the crowd of people eager to explore the dedications inside – the majority being youths, Lúcio’s type of audience actually, a dozen sporting the same green T-shirt with Numbani’s flag that Jack had whipped off a shop shelf.

The very generation that had grown up seeking splendour and progress from the mire of conspiracy and betrayal. No wonder they clung to people like Lúcio – heroics, that was what they wanted. A museum was a nice dose of nostalgia, without the provocation to encourage another group of oddballs to band together for the sake of the greater good. Just memories, set in glowing pixels and marble.

He pitied Winston, the poor, damn fool. Recall wouldn’t be pretty by any means.

His shadow was beginning to pool together at his feet by the time he passed into the doorway and through to the security checkpoints. Repurposed OR14 models directed people into separate lanes.

The security guards at the entrance scanned his form twice, muttering to one another and shooting Pepper odd looks. Better that she keep their attention rather than the tranquilliser and disassembled pistol in his rucksack. Jack sighed.

“PTSD,” he explained. “She helps if I have a panic attack.”

The manager stepped in. Jack bore their discussions. They escorted him through with Pepper trotting at his heel. Somewhere in London, Ana was probably tuning in with her telepathy and laughing at him whilst he digested his own disbelief. _Non-believer_ , she would sing.

The air conditioning cooled the film of sweat on his skin, but it was the brush of sticky, sun-lotioned arms around him that made him flinch. Tourists flocked around the reception counter, buying audio guides and milling about in designated groups for the next tour, swarming thickly around the holographic projection in lieu of the Doomfist gauntlet.

A medley of different languages harmonised in the hall, calling and chatting, hands shooting up everywhere to the posters of successive Doomfist personas glaring from the walls. Jack twisted the lead around again in his fist, sucking in a breath as his heart hammered the nail of panic into his gut.

He fondled Pepper’s ear. The small circles on her fur eased the tension from his chest. Nothing close to whistling that he could hear, but it didn’t hurt to be worried. For her. _For yourself_ , he heard Ana rebuke.

He seized a map of the museum from one of the stands, and groaned inwardly. They really were going to install the Doomfist gauntlet in the first hall, accessible through the building’s front glass window. Might as well give up on the security checkpoint. The multiple entrances would allow for Talon teams to pincer in.

Jack eyed the glass window, half-covered by pillars. Skyscrapers opposite the museum had more than enough balconies to give height advantage over the room.

This was all assuming that Talon didn’t steal the gauntlet beforehand. The open space in front of the museum would easily accommodate the ‘float’ – and any vehicles that pulled up next to it.

Stationing security at the Museum Station for the monorail might lend the same height advantage against Talon, if a car full of agents didn’t turn up to take control over the whole station.

He chewed on the inside of his mouth, before shuffling with Pepper along the flow of the crowd to the next rooms: the culture galleries, bright with illuminated models and vibrant art pieces.

Pepper whined a little, and he fed her some cheese cubes from his fanny pack to pacify her; he wouldn’t be surprised if that train conductor had radioed his colleagues about an “untrained dog unfit for travel” and spread the rumour around the city.

The fact that there were few windows was probably less to do with security than preserving the colour of the canvases. Pepper kept her nose to herself, whilst Jack counted the various opportunities for Talon to burst in and out without even coming close to where security was stationed. To think that they were only at the start of the tour. He checked the map: the dedication to Overwatch – likely a shrine to Gabrielle Adawe, with the Overwatch insignia in there somewhere – was in a hall two corridors away.

It was also swarming with tourists. He held tightly onto Pepper’s lead as the youths cooed at her, bristling at the combination of pressing bodies and sudden attention. His gut heaved. Jack ducked his head. Pepper nudged him into him, meeting his eyes. She was doing so well. Not a single bark. Maybe Ana had had a point. How she had an eye for determining these things, seeing _potential_ , he could not fathom. All part of the Amari mystique.

Even so, the shining Overwatch emblem jeered at him, a plaque filled with writing on the wall underneath. The pictures of Gabrielle Adawe were indeed flattering, because the only smile he’d ever seen was the strained one for his contributions to the strike team – and half the time, he could have sworn that they were grimaces with a little ironic humour in them. Ana and Torbjörn may have argued otherwise, but he’d let them have that privilege.

Some tourists oohed and aahed; Jack noted the ones that didn’t, the ones who stood quietly to the side and absorbed the collage of history. Disgust seemed to be the prevalent expression on their faces. Jack sympathised.

Pepper pulled a little at the lead, tearing his attention away: someone had pulled out a granola bar, and she was five seconds from jumping on it.

He led Pepper further down the exhibit, chuckling to himself at the panorama of Numbani in its early days that preceded a picture of – what a coincidence – Ana Amari and Torbjörn Lindholm flanking Adawe in a staged shot. No smiles in this one – just that peerless professionalism. Adawe stood in her crisp suit, skin aglow in the light; Torbjörn had his hands folded behind his back, Ana mirroring him without the usual cock of her hip. _They_ were Overwatch.

It was Reinhardt’s turn next, his booming laugh almost audible from just looking at how delighted he was, whilst children posed next to him, some holding onto his hammer with their chests puffed out and other hand on their hips. Still a giant even out of his armour, but no less impressive in his suit. The hammer was just a prop; the real danger was his infectious enthusiasm.

The other children in the photo were giggling, ducking under a gloved hand. Gabriel Reyes. Jack released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

Reyes’ expression was amused, unburdened relief in his smile that clenched hard around Jack’s heart. His suit tapered to his waist in a fine cut, unlike the hoodie – ‘tactical jacket’, whatever that meant – that had usually sat slack around it. Jack had almost forgotten what Reyes had looked like without it.

McCree had once sworn that it was Reyes’ only set of pyjamas. Fareeha had challenged him: _And how would you know that_? McCree had laughed, asking if she wanted to join in on their Disney slumber parties. Nothing but brazen.

Genji had immediately demanded to know why he hadn’t been invited. McCree had promised to make it up to him.

It was a nice tale, but Reyes never had the luxury to sleep in his hoodie. Jack had made sure of that – as much as he could, even after things soured. Should have asked McCree for an invite as well.

“Cute.”

It wasn’t the word so much as its sardonic tone of voice. Pepper made a loud noise, snapping sideways on the lead, and Jack reined her back with a sharp, “كـَعب!” Even so, the young woman standing beside him snickered. Some of the tourists glanced their way. Jack kept his eyes away from the security guard posts.

“She must be hungry!” The young woman simpered, breaking off a piece of her granola bar and holding it out. Jack scowled.

“She’s already had breakfast,” he said. “Pepper, كـَعب.”

Pepper stopped pulling on the lead, but her gaze was still on the piece of granola held between well-manicured fingers. “Aw, that’s an _adorable_ name.” The laughter in her voice belied the fondness of her comment. “Mind if I pet her?”

She was already moving forwards; Jack held out his hand. The young woman’s look was lost behind her dark sunglasses as she stopped short of making contact. “She’s working right now,” he said curtly.

“It wouldn’t hurt, would it?” Still, she smiled, and tossed the granola piece into her own mouth. Jack spared a look for the security guards. The crowds were thicker around Adawe’s commendations, but he, Pepper, and the young woman were in plain sight, should any of the security guards be curious.

The emergency exits were clear.

Coffee break, his mind told him. Trap, his gut snarled.

“I love this museum. So many antiques!”

He turned back to the young woman, squeezing the lead in his fist. “I don’t know. I skipped most of it.”

“Came straight for the Overwatch dedication?” She hummed and tilted her head as if to get a better view from the brim of her summer hat. “You must have been there for most of Overwatch’s lifetime. No offence, of course.”

He grunted.

“So what do you have to see here, then, if you’ve seen it all?” She gestured to the photos with her free hand. Pepper decided to sit, and Jack stroked her head, using the time to stall.

“Same as everyone else,” he said. “Remind myself of better days.”

“These guys do look very happy,” the young woman agreed. “Such a change.”

“From?”

“The later photos, you know?” She shrugged. Pepper shuffled as the young woman finished her granola bar and stuffed the wrapper into her pocket. Maybe if he hadn’t been feeding Pepper snacks, she wouldn’t be behaving this way. There was a shop down the road; it’d be his next stop after this.

“I suppose.”

“It’s such a shame that most of them are dead and didn’t get to see the world as it is.”

There wasn’t much to see, but then they weren’t dead, either.

“Yeah, a real shame,” he said.

The young woman folded her arms, and Jack noted the colourful hair peeking from her hat: black to purple to white. Her accent – Mexican?

“That explosion in Switzerland must have been a gold mine,” she mused, head canted to one side, angled more towards Reyes and Reinhardt than Adawe. “Even Death must have a _fiesta_ now and then.”

The hairs on his nape pricked. People these days and their morbid imaginations. The shimmering colour of Día de los Muertos turned into Swiss flame. He shook the image out of his head. “Not much to celebrate, taking life.”

“Well, that’s assuming that Death has human emotions.” She laughed. “I always imagined it as a machine, harvesting people while following code.”

“Whose code?” he challenged.

“Isn’t that the question we all ask ourselves?” she said teasingly. For a split second, he saw the outlines of her eyes through the sunglasses. She gestured to the ceiling. “I guess we’d have to ask whoever’s up in the sky.”

“Huh. Let me know how that goes,” he said flatly.

The young woman grinned. “Don’t we all want to know who’s in control? After all, things spiralled out of control pretty quickly with _them_ , didn’t it?” She flicked a finger to the pictures, to Reyes. He glanced at the photo again. The children in the photo gazed at him with unfiltered adoration. Jack wondered if _he’d_ ever looked the same way when he’d smiled at Reyes. Once upon a time, he was sure that Reyes had mentioned it.

Jack sighed, pulling his cap down. “Never seemed like they never had any control to begin with.”

She shrugged. “You’d know better than me. Still, Death had a good time clearing things up.” She coughed pointedly, and Jack raised an eyebrow at her. “ _Had_.”

Pepper sniffed at the young woman’s pocket where the granola packet was. He shifted his stance.

“Didn’t catch your name,” he said.

The young woman smirked, spreading her arms in a lazy shrug. “Aw, don’t feel bad, old man,” she crooned, stepping back, two tourists already slipping into the space where she’d stood. “No one does.”

Her sunhat bobbed into the sea of baseball caps and straw hats, just as the security guards returned to their posts. Jack reflexively bristled. He adjusted his own sunglasses and cap as he walked past their posts, stuffing the museum’s map into his back pocket whilst waiting for a group to disperse before he and Pepper could proceed. The eyes of the Overwatch team burned into his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://samiltonbattmann.tumblr.com/)!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lights. Camera. Action.

“Talon knows I’m here.”

Whatever reply Ana had concocted was lost over Pepper’s excited panting as she drew near, chewing on the Frisbee, a spindle of saliva hanging from her jaw. Jack pried the Frisbee out of her mouth with his slobber-soaked hand and tossed it into the air, Pepper kicking up dust as she scampered after it.

“You were saying?” he said, glancing back at his phone in his other hand as he propped it on the bags from the pet store.

Ana frowned, resting her chin on the bridge of her interlocked fingers. “And what does this have to do with the cashier who asked for my I.D. when I was buying champagne truffles?”

Jack fought a grin, but Ana’s unimpressed stare at being interrupted wore through his attempt. “Is that how kids flirt these days? ‘Cause I don’t know anyone else who’d have the guts.”

She rolled her eyes. “Straight to business, then. Talon, you say.”

He sobered. A family of five walked past, dark skin dappled as they passed underneath the acacia tree. Two of the kids had Lúcio tour shirts on – probably there to take a look at the foundations of the stage before it was swarmed.

Jack’s seat against the foot of the tree afforded him view of the stage’s skeleton, engineers marching like ants up and down the platforms, connecting the electronics. Every so often, an echoing clang from the construction chased the birds into the sky.

Replace every blade of grass on the dusty plain with people, double that, and it’d still be a long shot from the estimated number expected to turn up for the tour.

He reclined against the rough bark. “The museum’s a guaranteed bust,” he said curtly. “The entrances are practically unguarded and there are too many infiltration opportunities. Understaffed, disorganised, careless. Hell, they waved _me_ through.” He let her gasp in mock horror. “And yes,” he added, “the service dog trick did work. There. I saved you the gloating.”

“No, you’ve just stolen my glory.” She glanced away from her screen for a moment, frowning to her right, before scoffing and looking back. “So you looked into that purple skull?”

“Not yet. But a Mexican lady struck up a real interesting conversation in the museum. Could barely see an inch of her face behind her huge sunglasses.” He tensed as Pepper padded back to him, Frisbee clamped in her jaws, ignoring the teenagers who reached to pet her now that she didn’t have her jacket on.

One of them whistled. Pepper stopped, her ear pricked. Slivers of white were visible between her lips. Jack tensed, moving forwards with one hand planted on his thigh. But then he called her name, and she sprung towards him, happy to allow him to hold her collar just in case they whistled again.

“So you’ve been attracting the ladies?” Ana laughed. “Am _I_ the one who needs to be worried about young flirts?”

“Ana.” The Frisbee hit the ground as Pepper dove her muzzle into the bowl of water on the side. Socks of dust coated her legs. She dropped next to Jack, heaving loud enough to divert Ana’s attention, until she caught Jack’s glare. She sighed.

“Lighten up, Jack. What did she say?”

“Started talking about Switzerland.” Her eye narrowed fractionally. “Then made some shit up about Death being this electronic machine harvesting people.”

“Edgy,” remarked Ana. Her expression did not slacken. Jack fished out some melting cheese cubes from his fanny pack and fed them to Pepper, praising her under his breath whilst Ana continued, “Did she mention anything specifically? Blackwatch? Talon?”

Jack wrinkled his nose, Pepper’s tongue cleaning his fingers. “She took an interest in Reyes.”

“She’s not the first,” said Ana knowingly. She plucked something from the surface where her tablet was sitting and popped it into her mouth. Champagne truffles. Right. Living the good life in London. He ran his tongue over his teeth, conscious of the dry itch at the back of his throat. “I see,” she said, words thick as one cheek bulged. “That’s little to go on, Jack.”

“I know,” he grumbled, “but I don’t like it. C’mon, who else would have the reason to act so damn cryptic? Talon’s mocking us, Ana. Whatever I looked into at the car garage, they didn’t like it.” He laughed to himself. “I’m surprised that girl in the museum didn’t knife me when she had the chance – ‘cause she had plenty.”

Ana leaned back, lip curled in disapproval. “Glad to hear that you’re aware of your surroundings. The girl could be anyone, Jack. If she is Talon, then it’s too late to stop them. We need to mitigate the damage that they plan to cause. They could strike at any moment.”

Jack grunted. “This is what I mean. City should be on higher alert than it is. I’m gonna contact Numbani’s police, see if the Nigerian Armed Forces will respond, too.”

“I’m certain they will, when you mention the Doomfist gauntlet.”

“We should have destroyed it,” he snapped, “and saved ourselves all of this trouble.”

“It’s an artefact: its history has been tainted by wearers.” Ana smirked. “Don’t you remember Adhabu Ngumi, the Saviour, from your history lessons? It has the potential for good.”

“Just as much as my shoe.” Pepper chuffed loudly and Jack rubbed her muzzle, earning her pink tongue on his palm. He sighed, relaxing back into the tree. Ana was right: it was too late. He waited for Ana to finish another truffle before asking, “Sitrep on London?”

“As gloomy as ever.” She rested her cheek on her hand, pouting morosely. “I miss home already.”

“The names on Ozols’ tablet.” He tore another two-litre bottle from its biodegradable packaging and took a swig of cool water, before topping off Pepper’s bowl. She flopped onto her side, tongue lolling as she continued to pant. “You said that they were ex-Overwatch, Blackwatch, _and_ UN officials?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess. You intend to pursue them all?”

“It’s on my list.”

“Dear God, Jack. What does that make it now? The Doomfist gauntlet, the A.I. cache, Talon itself? You might as well create a list of the people you _don’t_ want to find.” She savoured another truffle. “And here I was wondering how you were going to spend your retirement.”

“We’re soldiers, Ana: we don’t retire.”

“You’ve never been to Hawaii, have you?” Her grin was sharp, a razor coring through his amusement. He hunched over, rolling the two-litre bottle between his palms. The mechanics laughed loudly from the stage: a dog had run up to them with a stick in its mouth, dancing away from their hands when they tried to grab it.

Their owner hurried up to the stage. He heard their apology from across the plain; families seized the moment on their phones, nudging each other, checking on their own pets.

“I told you, Ana.” He looked over to Pepper and gave her a pat. Her tail thumped the ground enthusiastically. He felt his muscles unknot, the tension in his middle unwinding, and he breathed a sigh. “Our bodies are tools, weapons. We have to use them or they ain’t worth a damn thing.”

Ana scoffed, paused between eating another truffle. “More SEP propaganda?”

“You try and tell me otherwise,” he said.

“I suppose I should be glad that you at least have focus. I hate to imagine what a cranky old man like you would do without anything to brood about.”

He nodded in agreement. The thought really wasn’t pleasant.

Pepper rose, lapping up water again, before barking to the chorus of a dog fight breaking out across the plain. If he closed his eyes and waned into the heat, where the light played in glowing specks through the leaves and burned through his sunglasses, he could have been in the night markets of Bangkok, rows of stalls sweltering with life.

Or Rio de Janeiro, febrile tension in the air as Overwatch had balanced on the knife-edge between two sides. Nairobi: an example of Overwatch’s dedication to animal preservation in its sprawling national park. New Delhi: the gala, rich with fragrance and colour and lights.

His own bed, too hot. Fevered. Aroused. Half-asleep. Spread-eagled on the sheets, or tucked in Reyes’ arms. Too hot.

Reyes tended to steal the blankets, swaddled himself in the middle of July, groaned when Jack pressed his cold feet against his calves or tried to worm his way into the heap. But Reyes’ skin burned, sunlight beating on the back of his neck, hearth fire on his palms, home back in Indiana yet underneath his cheek with a steady heartbeat to guide him to sleep.

Jack cracked his eyes open. Ana had taken interest in something on the side, unperturbed by his lapse in response. He huffed to himself, amused, and she looked enquiringly as to why he had broken the silence. He paused. Unsure where to start. Unsure if he _should_ even start.

“For the longest time,” he said slowly, “I had…a reminder. A saying. ‘What would Ana do’.” Ana laughed at that, and he grinned as well, if only to keep her smile alive in that moment. “If anyone had any common sense or sound judgement, it was you. Figured that after you were gone, you wouldn’t want us to forget your motherly wisdom.”

“Or my sniper wisdom,” she added. “Don’t forget that either.”

“Wisdom of all things on planet Earth,” he conceded, waving a hand, and she laughed again.

“Oh Jack,” she said. Her smile was pitying. He bit down his panic. He knew that tone – always felt sympathetic whenever it’d been directed at Fareeha. “I’m here for you. You know that.”

He blinked. The lack of rebuke took him off-guard. He scratched the back of his neck, dragging his fingers through a film of sweat. “I – yeah, I do.”

“For now, keep looking for Talon in Numbani,” she said. “And look after Pepper. I’ll be there tomorrow morning, ETA zero seven hundred.”

“Affirmative-”

Siren-screams pierced through the park. He leapt to his feet, scanning the city buildings, and, startled, Pepper jumped up beside him. Smoke plumed in unison to the car squeals and shouts, gunshots ricocheting off skyscrapers. Jack scooped his phone and slung his rucksack on.

Running beside Pepper assured him that he had all he needed.

Adrenaline fuelled a fountain of sweat down his back. But muscle memory and enhanced biology hadn’t failed him yet and wouldn’t now: his heart picked up the pace, powering through elderly aches.

He darted onto the road, where cars horned angrily at him and drivers swore, weaving between lanes whilst Pepper loped next to him. Fear stewed low in his gut. The Lúcio concert wasn’t until Friday. Talon would have known this. They wouldn’t risk their chances of maximising casualties before the grand event, not unless there was a damn good reason for it.

When he made it into the centre metropolis, words and warnings were buzzing like hornets through the crowds: OR15, Doomfist, terrorist, explosion, Unity. His phone told him that the call with Ana had ended; he flicked onto the news, mapping his way to Unity Plaza when he saw the pictures.

He ignored the live stream and tucked it away. It was hard enough trying to break through the traffic and keep an eye on Pepper.

He ran until he came to the OR15 models safeguarding a hard-light barricade to Adawe Avenue. The airport was only up the road. People were filming it on their mobiles and craning their necks around the omnics. Some children cried. News teams elbowed for space.

He shoved through the bodies, giving him and Pepper enough room to wade to the front of the barricade whilst those behind him shouted angrily. The OR15s repeated the same warnings to the public: stay behind the barrier, return to your homes, report any injuries immediately to the nearest officer.

Then a black bird passed overhead, resonating jet engines quashing all other noise. Red lights glared from its cockpit and underbelly. Jack felt his eardrums vibrate and barely heard Pepper’s snarl. Its wings were thickset, boxlike, but easily steered through the skyscrapers.

Its graceless shape – the old RZ bird – had flown one too many times in Overwatch’s days, frequently under the cover of darkness whilst paramedics were on the ground and a new disaster made the headlines. Somewhat outdated for Talon, he mused, considering the sleeker, more compact models that he’d encountered.

Still, infamous for a reason. Jack steadied a hand on Pepper’s neck, clenching the other to stymie the nervous tremors.

Compartments on its wings opened. Jack roared at the top of his voice: “Get down!”

He threw himself over Pepper just as the world crunched and heat flooded his side.

Even louder than the explosions were the surrounding screams; some people fled back down the road, but others stood firm. Jack looked up, still one arm around Pepper, to see the fire in their eyes, their mouths agape at the OR15 that had been caught in the blast and lay strewn on the ground.

Shrieking underneath the OR15 was a reporter, her legs caught. Her team dove to the ground to help, trying to shift the omnic’s heavy frame.

More incredible still was that it was the only casualty. Jack followed the smoke trails that stained the air, cast round the corner beyond the barricade. Poor shot. Lucky shot. Either way, it’d been distracted.

He darted forwards, leaping over the gap and over the OR15 chassis and reporter, Pepper barking as she kept pace. The other OR15s called out, but he caught sight of them aiding the reporters and holding back the other news teams who tried to scramble after him.

The RZ jet had been hovering by the skyscrapers, but now ascended out of building height. It veered back, and Jack slowed for a split-second whilst it turned tail.

An Aurora OSS-7 chased after it.

Jack watched it with a slack jaw. Perhaps it was out of shock, or fondness, or the expectation of seeing Overwatch agents rappel from the shuttle to the ground. But when it followed the RZ jet over the airport’s runways, he tore his gaze back to the road, where Pepper was still bounding up the avenue, and cursed himself.

The road was devoid of any assailants – Talon or otherwise – yet still bore the scorch marks of the missed missiles. Gunfire rattling in the distance assured him that the Aurora OSS-7 wasn’t Talon’s only target.

The catwalks afforded a decent sniper position – hell, any eyes beyond his would have been a godsend. It chewed at him, a chilling panic with teeth gnashing on his nerves. Ana Amari hadn’t been by his side for six years, and yet even now, she was a ghost, a gap that she’d promised to fill. Twenty-four hours – would it have killed Talon to wait twenty-four fucking hours?

Jack shouted, “Pepper, كـَعب! كـَعب!” and puffed a sigh of relief when she paused and loped back towards him.

Together, they headed into a small alley near the airport’s entrance, and Jack violently slung his rucksack off his shoulders. Ripping the rucksack’s foil lining exposed the pistol parts that he assembled whilst giving Pepper a glance over. Some dust lingered on her fur, but no blood or soot. Pieces clicked into place. He hoisted the rucksack onto his back. Pepper licked his wrist as he fondled her ear.

“Good girl,” he said. “Good girl.”

She panted, mouth open in a smile.

The nearby café sported a mosaic of terrified, curious faces in the window. His face burned as he ran past them, following the dog, catching the sharp buzz of a chronal accelerator beyond his sight.

Broken OR15s trailed the road towards Unity Plaza, their armour crumpled and burnt. Missiles were fast. He clenched his jaw. Tracer was faster.

Jack fired into the black-clad soldiers on the road. They yelled in pain, dropping beside the omnics by their feet. He left them twitching on the solar road panels. Their red eyes glowed even in the sun. Pepper growled but moved onwards, past the Chancellor Hotel.

A toppled tour bus gave them cover as he slowed, one hand on Pepper’s collar just in case. She rumbled warningly.

The first sniper shot made him flatten to the ground, just as Pepper jumped and retorted with a series of barks. He checked his surroundings: the bullet was nowhere close. He frowned and turned back to Pepper.

“Shush,” he said, stroking her head, his pulse echoing the sound of the shot. She bristled, but stayed put when he released her, instead using his hand to tear his sunglasses and cap off to the ground and expose the sweat on his scalp. His vision expanded without its shadow over his eyes. He still missed his favourite red overlay.

He spotted the bus’ wing mirror on the ground and tilted it with his foot. Two soldiers were approaching down the avenue. Two more stood in the concourse outside the Aetria department store. The catwalks were too high to spot.

Right in the middle of the concourse: the ‘float’.

He squinted at the reflection, waiting for the break between two soldiers circling around it to see what they’d stuck on top. It was some kind of glass canister, a metallic object slowly rotating inside. The black and gold caught the light.

Jack froze. Shit. How the hell had they transferred the gauntlet to the car already?

Rapid gunfire blazed across the concourse. Jack jolted back to the present as the two soldiers on the avenue rushed back up to cover the other two now sprawled on the ground. OR15s, likely – programmed to incapacitate, not kill.

Whilst the soldiers’ shots – and the thunder of a sniper rifle – brought loud pings of metal and electronic screeching, Jack studied the curve of the Chancellor Hotel. He could just see a catwalk connected to it, overlooking the concourse. If he leaned out a little further, he’d likely be able to see if there were any more soldiers stationed there.

He lowered his pistol and doubled back.

He’d taken the main street on his way to the museum that morning, but he remembered how the crowds had split coming up to the Chancellor Hotel, some diverting left. As he took the path on the left side of the hotel, he almost smiled with relief: it did indeed flank around.

Gunshots had stopped – apart from the sniper, still in the distance. The OR15s had fallen silent. There was more, then, beyond the concourse – more targets, more enemies of Talon.

It could be any sniper. He thought back to the RZ jet. Talon wouldn’t just send _any_ sniper. Not for the Doomfist gauntlet.

It wasn’t that – wasn’t _her_. It was who the rest of the cavalry were.

Pepper ran ahead; he dropped back, raising his pistol, ear cocked for footsteps. A radio clicked, and someone called out as Pepper rounded the corner. Jack held his breath.

When a gunshot didn’t answer, he edged up the wall to underneath the catwalks, where a door to the Chancellor Hotel had been destroyed. He peered into the room, noting the luggage spilled out from their trolleys.

Meanwhile, Pepper was sniffing at the ‘float’, near the two bodies of the soldiers in the middle of the concourse. So far, minimal civilian casualties. He couldn’t remember Talon ever playing so nicely before.

Then again, it helped when a feisty, upstanding ex-Overwatch citizen got involved.

The two other soldiers shooed Pepper away, before tending to their downed colleagues and communicating through their radios. Someone above him, their radio clicking with each transmission, paced on the catwalk.

Jack aimed forwards. Pepper wandered away from the soldiers over to the open door to Aetria, when he shot repeatedly at the space between their chest plates and their belts until they buckled, and then dove into the luggage room whilst the soldier above shouted and Pepper barked.

In the distance, the sniper had stopped firing. At some point, the sound of the chronal accelerator had stopped, too. It had been replaced by a low, deep bass of electronic music. He snorted to himself. Hell of a time to start a rave.

Footsteps clattered down the stairs, growing louder until they paused outside the room. Jack waited. Pepper was still making a fuss outside, but not enough to cover the scuff of boots as they crept towards him, a shadow falling through the hallway. He marked the direction of the rifle’s muzzle. Cornered in the room, there were only two ways out.

He glanced at his feet, to the paraphernalia of luggage content: aerosols, clothes, books. One suitcase had been ripped open, its guts upended. He bent to pick it up, weighing it in his left hand, aware as a black muzzle peeked from the corridor.

He swung the suitcase up, striking the assault rifle for it to spray into the ceiling, and fired point blank into the soldier’s chest. They jerked and fell. He kicked the rifle away just in case, and left the suitcase.

Pepper trotted into the room, and he fondled her ear before wiping the sweat from his brow. It clung to his hand, made it sticky; all the same, he declined Pepper’s offer to lick it off.

There were four bodies outside on the concourse. The two soldiers who had been wounded in the middle of the concourse were silent, likely stunned by the OR15s. The other two were no better.

The Doomfist gauntlet rolled in its canister: a sitting duck. Bait. Jack fired a shot at the glass. A hard-light shield reverberated in a blue mesh, promptly disappearing from the point of contact. When he tried to pry it off the vehicle, some kind of strong magnetism held it down. Nothing short of an EMP would disconnect it.

Jack stalked up to the main road, hugging a wall to his left, to study the OR15s. One had collapsed on its front; its back had been speared by sniper shots. He scowled, and his hand darted out to catch Pepper before she could stray onto the road, ignoring her lolling tongue as she panted excitedly. He remembered a few balconies overlooking Unity Plaza, all perfect for sniper nests.

Not that _this_ sniper wasn’t capable of killing from any place, any angle.

Best to circumvent, then, he thought, and pulled Pepper back to the entrance to Aetria.

Slipping inside made him appreciate the film of sweat across the rest of his skin and dryness of his throat. He peered around the corner; music bounced through the hallway, where steps led down to another level of the shop. A voice – almost shrill – carried through the bass. He stalked down the steps with his pistol raised. Pepper padded next to him.

“We’re pinned down, over! Bottom floor of the Aetria, Widowmaker opposite on the balcony of the Sigma building – hey!”

Jack lowered his pistol just as Lena Oxton raised hers. Hair askew in a permanently windswept fashion, freckles peeking from the rim of her goggles, chronal accelerator over faux leather jacket – he was seven years younger, seeing her for the first time.

_She’s our future_ , he’d thought then.

She’s alive, he thought now, weak with relief.

Lena stared at him across the room, sheathing her pistols into her white vambraces and then leaning back against the wall. The young man next to her waved tentatively. Music rumbled from his suit and the device – speaker? – in his hand. He knew that it was impossible to compare with thirty-foot posters, but the man looked so much smaller in real life – even with his glowing hard-light skates.

“Hi,” said Lúcio. His eyes flickered to the pistol in Jack’s hands. “You…okay there?”

Jack went cold. Lena caught his eyes, staring so intently that he wondered whether she could see right through him – if she didn’t already guess who he was. His heart – unexpectedly – sank. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d spent the last six years hiding who he was that blowing it all now was an anti-climax.

Or perhaps it was the fact that not once in those six years had he reached out to her. In that case, he deserved all of the pain in her gaze.

“Who are you?” demanded Lena. One of her empty hands went to the hole in her leggings on her left thigh; the wound wasn’t bleeding, but her grimace wasn’t promising, either.

Jack hummed, feeling the tension in his body release, before focusing on the light coming through the doors. So Talon _had_ sent Widowmaker.

“Not your enemy,” he said curtly, and nodded at the open doors that led into Unity Plaza. “When was the last time you marked Widowmaker’s position?”

“About thirty seconds ago,” said Lúcio, shrugging. “She’s had her eye on us ever since we approached the museum.” He hesitated, and Jack could have laughed at the confusion behind his green visor as he spotted Pepper. “Uh, are you some kind of security?”

“Pepper, قـَعـَد,” said Jack, biting back a smile when she actually listened and sat next to Lúcio, who gave her an affectionate pat. The sight brought the crease out of Lena’s brow; she cooed at Pepper, hobbling a step towards her. Jack held out a hand. “Who else is on the ground?” he asked.

“My friend Winston.” Lena bit her lip, and the frown returned as she glanced back the way past Unity Plaza. “He’s still up by the museum, poor guy. Lúcio and I chased after Widowmaker and her li’l group of cronies. Hope he’s okay.” She brightened, and her voice hardened with fierce determination. “I’m sure he is!”

“Y’know, you should probably find shelter. It ain’t safe out here,” said Lúcio gently to Jack.

“Trust me, kid, I know that better than you.” The words came out wrong. _Let me do my job._ But Lúcio smiled, cocking his gun over his shoulder. Pepper wagged her tail.

“Hey, I’m not doubtin’ you. But, uh, unless you can do somethin’ about Widowmaker – or help Winston back there with Reaper-”

Jack’s heart almost stopped. “Reaper’s here?”

“The whole Talon shebang’s here, love.” Lena winced and sat on the nearest clothes table. “Don’t suppose you could pump up the volume, Lúcio?”

Lúcio’s smile faded. “Sorry. This thing has a cooldown for those li’l bursts. Needed a speed boost back there to grind on those walls.”

“You got a bullet in there?” said Jack, nodding unseeingly at her leg as his thoughts cluttered. Reaper _and_ Widowmaker. Just his luck. But at least he had allies: the famous Tracer – albeit injured – and a combative DJ. Jack rolled his shoulders. Not the worst circumstances in his time as Strike-Commander.

“Shrapnel from some goon’s gun,” said Lena, grinning, bringing him back to the present. “Nothin’ I can’t handle.”

Jack paused. It was just bravado – everyone in the room knew. The Doomfist gauntlet was still sitting back there on the concourse; Lena and Lúcio could secure it and transport it via the Aurora OSS-7, if he bought them some time.

Then again, it sounded like Lúcio’s gun had some acceleration properties. That, with Lena’s blink and a distraction back up near the catwalks to Unity Plaza, could give them the chance to incapacitate Widowmaker. They’d have the high ground. They could stop Reaper.

“Your shuttle,” he said to Lena. “Who was driving it?”

She swallowed, bouncing her leg to test it. “It’s automated – piloted by Winston’s A.I. But she’s supposed to be keeping Talon’s bird busy: they’re gonna drop someone down to steal the gauntlet!”

“Damnit,” swore Jack, squeezing his pistol to give his anger an outlet. How come Lena and Winston had no backup? Had _no one_ answered his recall?

He saw Ana’s smirk in his mind’s eye. _Hypocrite_.

“Any ideas?” prompted Lúcio.

A comm’s beep answered. Lena’s hand flew to her ear.

“Winston?” she said, a little too quickly for her chipper tone to maintain. “You all right, big guy?”

Jack called Pepper over, rubbing her head whilst Lena glanced his way and then Lúcio’s. Pepper’s ear suddenly pricked; her head shot up, and Jack squinted into the light outside.

“Hold on!” shouted Lena.

The ground shook. An inhuman roar was met with the snap of two sniper shots.

Then shotgun rounds thundered.

Lúcio readied his gun.

“That ain’t at us,” said Jack, striding to the door on the right. “Widowmaker’s aiming towards the museum.” Pepper trotted up to him, peeking out the door, and he turned back to Lena and Lúcio. “Secure the gauntlet on Aetria’s concourse. Don’t let anyone near it.”

Lúcio nodded, but Lena leapt to her feet. She stood strong even as he sized her up. “And what, you’re gonna take on Widowmaker?”

“Tell Winston to switch targets.”

“What?” Lena’s eyes widened. “What about-”

“I can’t get over there,” snarled Jack, “if Widowmaker has eyes on the plaza. I need her distracted. Just go and take care of the payload!”

“C’mon, Tracer,” said Lúcio. He flicked a button with his thumb, and the music changed: each note ascending, charged with urgency, thrumming in Jack’s ears. His heartbeat quickened at the sound of it.

Reports said that Lúcio had stolen Vishkar tech. Hell of a way to make use of it. Kudos for originality, though.

Lena stared for a moment, and then smiled. He almost smiled back when she gave a two-fingered salute. “All right. You can count on us.”

They disappeared in flashes of blue and green light, leaving a searing afterimage. Jack ran to the other door down a short set of steps, peering out just as an armour-clad gorilla roared and sprung up to the catwalks on the Sigma building.

A black stream of smoke passed underneath and went around the back.

“تعالي هنا, Pepper.”

He ran back up the steps and left through the door on the right, ducking slightly. Pepper barked, but he ground his teeth and vaulted over the railing. The drop jarred his knees. Too old for this.

He headed towards the end of the alleyway where the smoke had headed. Automatic fire rattled through the doorways to his left.

Black smog crashed into him. Jack’s back clicked as he rolled to find purchase, tucking his chin against the claws around his throat as they squeezed and pain seized his breath. He thrust his pistol up into a crevice and fired. The hands disappeared.

The fog wheezed a laugh. Jack gasped for breath, firing into the mass of smoke as it formed into a familiar shape.

The rest of the bullets passed through.

“Almost felt that one, Morrison,” said Reaper dryly, tapping the hole through his chest where his heart should have been. Jack coughed out the last of the foul smoke, thicker than his grandfather’s old car exhaust, although the tightness in his chest remained.

Then Reaper’s legs evaporated as Pepper ran up to him, barking and trying to jump up, wagging her tail playfully. Reaper’s laugh _sounded_ like a car exhaust, too.

“What’s this? You got yourself a guide dog, old man?”

Jack whistled twice.

Pepper reared up and tore into Reaper’s bicep. Reaper howled, and Jack shot through Reaper’s other forearm, causing the would-be shotgun to evaporate before it could catch Pepper’s flank. The sounds coming from Pepper’s jaws were ferocious: wet growls that rumbled around Reaper’s flesh. Reaper swerved, and Pepper followed, leaping up to his chest.

The ground vibrated again just as Jack aimed for Reaper’s head. It only took a second to readjust his aim, but the white streak that hurtled through the air and crashed into Pepper gave Reaper the freedom to dissolve into a black pool.

Jack swerved as the smoke surged at him. It punched into his side and dragged him down. Claws snagged the pistol from his hands – claws puncturing his side, claws around his throat, whilst fists pummelled his stomach.

Jack kicked, but his legs flailed through the air. Hands pinned his to the ground that burned into his back. His head swam. He choked. Every second seemed to make his lungs shrivel and his heartbeat strike his eardrums. As the grip tightened, he panicked, even as rational thought told him to focus.

But what weapon could fight against a ghost?

A roaring filled his ears. Sinuous whispers wound in the spaces that oxygen left. _This is how it should have been. You deserve this, Morrison. Fucking ghost. Should have stayed dead._

The snarl at the end gave him pause. This wasn’t _his_ voice. It was Reyes’. Somehow that worsened the agony in his lungs. He couldn’t tell why he was crying any more – only that his vision shimmered with tears.

_Pathetic. Asshole. Should have stayed dead. Thought you could play hero?_

He gasped roughly and sucked in smoke. The bitterness was fitting, and he willed his body to accept it whilst he tore his hands free and aimed his fists for throat, sternum, gut. His throat seemed to be caving under Reaper’s crushing grip – Jack tried to scream through the pain, but his lungs came up empty on air.

He lifted his arms to jab his elbows into the crook of Reaper’s arms – intended to, anyway, when he felt them pass through and flop onto the ground. His vision went dark.

Purple light exploded behind his eyes. He saw Reaper’s silhouette burn in a flash of lightning, a storm sweeping Jack’s consciousness into ocean black. Safe. Soundless. But it was too shallow for him to sink into; he bobbed back to seeing Reaper’s head turned, concentrating on something beyond Jack.

Opportunity enough. Jack sucked in a breath around Reaper’s hands, and released it as a grunt: he flipped his hips up, rocking onto his upper back – which clicked again in protest – to bring his knees to his chest.

Unlike Reaper’s legs, his chest was much more solid. Jack kicked out, feeling his muscles twinge from exertion. Reaper growled as Jack twisted away. The fog from his lower half plumed around the confines of the alleyway. Pepper yelped from behind the fog, and Jack’s heart did a nervous dance.

Thunder roared in Jack’s ears, followed by the bone-jarring, earth-jumping impact of a gorilla slamming down into the alley. Jack seized the chance to find his pistol and clawed it from the ground.

He clambered to his feet just as prongs of lightning latched onto Reaper’s bulk. The light made Jack’s eyes water. Winston stood firm in his armour, jetpack still glowing from use, one arm keeping his weapon aloft. Jack wondered, dazedly, how it must feel to be fried by a tesla cannon, burned to ash or whatever shit Reaper was made of.

Then the electricity stopped, Winston hesitating. Two wrestling shapes emerged from the smoke: one white, one pepper-striped. Reaper was hunched over, half of his body alight with smoke wisps snaking into the air. Jack levelled the pistol at the cut of white in the centre of the black smog.

Reaper suddenly twisted, throwing something onto the ground. Jack shot anyway. His heart had already sunk with resignation, his eyes squinting to protect against a burst of light or fire or shrapnel.

Nothing came. The bullet vibrated into the blue field that had sprung from the device.

Reaper laughed, and Jack tested the trigger. Locked. Out of ammo.

Safe behind the small, concave shield, Reaper raised his shotgun, and Jack was shoved to the side. His vision swam as his shoulder jarred against the side of the building, pain ricocheting to the bone. He squeezed his eyes shut and released the pain in a harsh rasp.

A shotgun boomed, and Winston shouted as he dropped his tesla cannon.

Reaper laughed at the shattered muzzle of the tesla cannon as his shotgun dissolved.

“Nice try,” he said. “Fooled me once.”

_When_ was the pertinent question that Jack thought. _Pepper_ quickly overrode it.

Winston leapt forwards, passing through the barrier, and Reaper burst into a cloud of smog. Jack scooped up the shield; the pod deactivated in his hand. Just like the OR15s’: a one-way defensive screen. It fitted in his fanny pack.

He looked up quickly enough to see a figure veer through the sky on a cable, swinging above Reaper towards the Aetria concourse, and he grimaced.

“Are you all right, sir?”

_Sir_. Jack almost choked with laughter. It was just courtesy, but it still grated. Winston watched him worriedly, even as his hands dragged his tesla cannon closer, fingers already fiddling with the broken muzzle.

Behind the ruins of the cannon was Pepper, legs bent and lips pulled back. Her opponent hissed, back arched and ears flattened.

Jack stared as the white cat bolted, avoiding Winston’s touch as he turned around and tried to console them. It scampered across the road, tracing Reaper’s path, and Jack entertained the notion of Talon training cats as part of their array of operatives.

Or maybe it really didn’t like dogs.

“There, there.” He realised that Winston was talking to Pepper, patting her head as her growls faded. Her stance seemed to settle the longer he coddled and mumbled to her in his rumbling voice. She licked Winston’s hands. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Jack ignored his cajoling and called, “Pepper!” His throat still burned – not that his voice had anything more to lose by it.

Both Pepper and Winston glanced his way, the former giving her tail a wag. Still in action. Still alert. Still operable.

“Sir-!” began Winston, but Jack sprinted for the Aetria building. Pepper easily overtook him. She might have already memorised the smells: the scent of blood from beside the ‘float’, and Reaper’s smoke.

His body trembled with effort. The SEP hadn’t counted on old men taking hits from smoke monsters. He doubted that the surgeons had even counted on them making it to old age.

Sounds echoed through the city: sniper shots, shotgun pellets, chronal accelerator buzzes. Jack cocked an ear for the upbeat electro that seemed to be getting further away. He’d told them to stay on the concourse, damnit.

He noted the heavier debris as he neared the top of the road to the concourse, before glancing up. The purple flash he’d glimpsed in the sky – passable for an explosion, if he didn’t already know that the gauntlet created a bubble of red plasma.

In any case, whatever had disabled the canister had done its job. The concourse was a mess of bullet punctures and rubble, the bodies of the Talon agents half-buried. Jack spat a curse at it, just to be safe, and, without breaking his stride, ran back down Adawe Avenue towards the centre of the noise.

It stood to reason that Talon would want to evacuate. They’d got what they wanted. He hoped that the A.I. driving the Aurora OSS-7 knew how to gun down RZ jets.

Jack heard the heavy slaps of Winston’s gait as he caught up, and resisted a groan. Pepper barked happily as Winston joined them.

“Sir, I insist that you find shelter indoors,” said Winston, voice strained. He was carrying his ruined tesla cannon in one hand, some of the chassis sparking along the ground. “Please, for your own safety-”

“Get out of my way,” snapped Jack.

“Please, I cannot allow you to endanger your life any further-”

Jack flinched as the air cracked, followed by a roar that rumbled deep from within the city. The sonic boom silenced Winston’s voice – but not those around its epicentre. The screams were just as piercing: a chorus of wails, raw and broken as some ended too quickly and some petered into quiet rumbling.

The RZ jet had been heading over the airport. If he was lucky, it had passed over. If he was right, then passengers had a lot more to worry about than their flights being delayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hit me up on [tumblr](http://samiltonbattmann.tumblr.com/)!


	6. Chapter 6

Jack was right.

Hence why he ordered Pepper away from the mobs of screaming people on the street outside the airport. Its entrance – the only free space, muddled with debris – was cordoned off, defended by armed police officers. Smoke rose like gas vents from destroyed vehicles and within the building.

Even if he’d tried, Jack doubted he’d be able to hear his own voice within the deafening noise. A new nervousness squeezed at his innards, and he reached for Pepper.

One hand on her collar and the other pushing people out of his way, Jack took her to the side, to the alleyway where he’d first taken out his pistol. Two children were sitting at the kerb, crying, wrapped in mylar blankets. OR15s and various police and emergency officers had also cordoned the area to respond to casualties.

He and Pepper found a space for her to sit whilst he pressed himself against the hot alley wall, and peered over the bobbing heads of the Numbani people as they shifted restlessly, bouncing off each other’s panic, stirred by the clamour of pain and confusion.

Gunfire still rattled in the sky, somewhere over the airport’s runways. Winston’s jetpack-fuelled leap had taken him onto the airport’s roof. Jack couldn’t hear the result of his intervention over the crowd’s noise.

He pulled out his phone from his pocket and rubbed his forehead at the sight of Ana’s missed calls and messages.

_Where are you now?_

_Head towards Unity Plaza._

_Winston & Tracer are reported to have been sighted._

_Winston & Tracer in the area._

_Reaper & Widowmaker in the area. Be safe._

_The gauntlet is their objective. Protect it._

_Where are you?_

_Gauntlet security breached. Find the gauntlet._

_Skirmish at the Adawe International Airport._

_Check the skies for hostile aircraft._

_RZ jet identified._

Officers were redirecting non-lethal casualties to a different area. Jack caught the eye of a woman in the Kofi Aromo café; she was watching the discordance with wide eyes, nose and palms pressed against the glass, until she looked his way and blinked with something akin to confusion.

Probably wondering why he wasn’t screaming like everyone else.

Jack huffed to himself, drawing his gaze back to his phone, and sent a message to Ana.

_@ airport. wait for instruction_

He paused.

_pepper ok_

Jack fondled Pepper’s ear, and she panted happily at the attention, dropping onto her stomach to rest. When he looked up, he spotted a girl in the crowd, distinct by the circle of reporters around her and the painted white dots around her eyes. She stared at the airport – not with horror, or fear, or anger. He saw the same thing he’d seen in Lena.

The same spirit. The same determination. The resolve to never let anyone feel the same pain as she had.

His phone vibrated.

_Where are Talon & the gauntlet?_

The million-dollar question.

He replied: _airport runways. unconfirmed_

He heard a name – a buzz from within the swarm, a thread in the web. Doomfist. He knew the identity. Akande Ogundimu. Supposedly in Helix Security’s care, but considering recent events in Egypt, he shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was to hear otherwise.

Not to doubt Fareeha Amari’s employer, because clearly they had _some_ sensibility in recruiting their employees – but not everyone could be an Amari, and Helix Security was an irresistible pie for Talon’s thumbs.

Jack regarded the crowds and the near-stagnant traffic of people as some fought to leave and others hemmed in to spectate. A part of him already despaired at the prospect of ploughing his way through. Another part had already dismissed the question of whether his belongings would still be near the concert stage: Pepper’s food, Pepper’s toys, not to mention the packs of bottled water.

The frenetic scuffling of civilians rose to an almost animalistic skitter as an explosion boomed from the airport. People shrieked and heads bobbed with another sequence of conflicting movement.

Jack tucked his phone away and inhaled deeply, before diving in; he used the small currents of people retreating to jostle his way out of the area. Pepper’s collar dug into the crooks of his fingers; she pulled in her excitement, but did not attempt to drag him into the crowds. Jack adjusted the straps of his rucksack as it was pushed and pulled by the bodies bumping into him.

Too much sweaty skin, too much noise. Jack’s head rang, and, for a moment, Numbani darkened to the concrete halls of the Australian omnium, the echoes of mechanical assembly clanging through the darkness-

He loosened his grip on the collar that was hurting his fingers-

And as he crept forwards through the field, his comm’s chatter burst in his right ear whilst the whistles of falling bombs rang in his left-

He collided, staggered, gasped for air with his heart beating hard and sweat stinging his eyes whilst his heart drummed in his throat in fear-

Of the lights beaming from the Bastion unit’s optics, red-you’re-dead and bright as heaven, trained on him as he was about to do something stupid, make Reyes proud-

He squeezed his eyes shut. Not real. Pepper’s collar chafed against his palm, and he uncurled a finger to scratch through her fur. Opening his eyes exposed him to the light, and burned away the afterimages that shimmered behind his eyelids. He found himself in a more spacious part of the street, further from the airport. Even with his distance, panic was still palpable, driven by pedestrians’ whipping heads as they peered over one another and rising with each finger pointed to the way he’d come.

Jack could have – should have – spent the time communicating to Ana and checking up on Winston, Lena, and Lúcio. The columns of skyscrapers distorted his view of the sky, although movement on the monorail had ceased.

With his newfound space, he brought out his phone again, letting his feet take him back to the apartment. Every media outlet in the world had honed in on the attack, pecking at it from various angles: eyewitness accounts, political statements, live footage. News feed came in sharp salvos flitting down his screen.

One critic was already issuing a fierce diatribe against the OR15s. Jack avoided an ambulance that drove past, heading towards the airport, and then returned his attention to the article with something close to resignation. It was creative, optimistic even, to repurpose the omnics for protection. Better to leave them alone. It was what they wanted, after all.

He brought up his messages to Ana, and sent another: _ow v talon @ airport. rdvz @ apartment._

Then a new flood of messages came through: TALON ESCAPES AIRPORT WITH DOOMFIST.

Well, fuck.

Pepper wagged her tail in recognition of their apartment block’s entrance, and waited for Jack to scan his apartment key. He rushed up the stairs, much to Pepper’s enjoyment as she bounded after him, and let her into the apartment as quickly as possible. She went for the bowl of water he’d set out for her earlier, and he went to the bedroom.

Jack restocked his rucksack with everything he’d left under the bed before leaving for the Numbani Heritage Museum that morning. He tossed a biotic emitter up and down in his hand. His muscles ached. Its recovery rate had been radically increased since its conception under Dr. Ziegler so many years ago, but every second spent in its proximity reduced his chances of finding Lena, Lúcio, and Winston. He sighed and packed it away with the others.

As he stuffed his jacket back into the bag, he remembered the Lakers cap he’d left on Adawe Avenue, and cursed himself. A different ache sang in his chest, and he scrubbed hands through his hair in his frustration, trying to distract himself with blunted nails tearing his scalp.

It didn’t matter: it was just a hat. He reloaded his pistol with a fresh magazine, fed Pepper another cheese cube as she nosed her way into his business, and then returned to the living room with Pepper at his heels to appraise the apartment.

It had done the job for Jonathan Yates and his impromptu dog, more so than the dumpsters that he reckoned they both knew too well.

Pepper perked, head swivelling to the window. Jack’s hands unconsciously made the connection by unholstering his pistol; seeing the cat filled him with exasperation that he thought warranted the reaction.

The cat sat on the balcony, whipping its tail, staring at Pepper. Even Jack could see that it was a taunt. Pepper growled.

He _could_ shoot through glass, but then, it was just a cat.

The lock on the balcony door clicked, and it slid open. Jack went cold.

“No, Pepper-!” He lunged for her collar, and missed.

She bolted straight for the cat.

Jack registered the ticklish sensation of air around his ankles that suddenly tightened, and then his vision toppled. His rucksack cushioned his fall more than last time; he rolled from his back to his side, halfway onto his knees.

It felt like a boot in his stomach. He flew and cracked into something – or maybe that was himself cracking – and his body pleaded, with acid in his throat and muscles and tears in his eyes, for it to stop.

He groaned and blinked until his vision steadied, then curled upwards, his back a gaudy mosaic of twinges and aches. But he watched as a pool of smoke thickened to slam the balcony door behind Pepper.

She jumped at the railing, and Jack swore that his heart jumped with her.

He lunged for the pistol he’d dropped, and cursed as Reaper kicked it away.

Then Reaper stared down at him, his grating laugh only just louder than Jack’s wheezing. In his left hand was a shotgun. The right was empty.

“This is it, isn’t it,” said Reaper flatly, slowly, and lifted his chin to regard the apartment. Jack stole a glance at the pistol, which had skidded to the opposite wall from the balcony.

Pepper herself was hopping with impatience and barking at the cat, which seemed to squint back at Pepper in a manner almost derisive.

Then Reaper hummed, turning his attention back to Jack. “Better than that dump in Dorado, huh?”

Jack propped himself up, but Reaper’s small tick with the shotgun warned him to stay down. So he thought instead, and he baulked with what Reaper had just admitted. Really, there shouldn’t have been any doubt about it – he’d already had enough evidence, what with Monika Ozols being Reaper’s victim and yet her belongings materialising on Jack’s cot in Dorado – but there’d always been other possibilities.

It didn’t have to be so straightforward. It was even less logical, Jack reasoned, for it to be so straightforward. So Reaper _had_ paid him a visit in Dorado, and everything since then had conveniently slotted into place: Jack alone in Numbani, Ana separated from him in London, both in possession of a list of names that neither had the resources to pursue.

All part of Reaper’s breadcrumbs. The worst part? He and Ana were all too willing to follow them, if only to seek the end of the darkness.

“Don’t tell me: Amari paid for the upgrade.” Reaper gestured to the apartment – specifically, towards the balcony, where Pepper had begun to whine and scratch at the door, her breath fogging the glass in translucent puffs.

“Chatty, aren’t you,” said Jack. He could knife Reaper, provided he closed the distance. He’d survived the shotgun fire once; this time, if it glanced his _left_ side, he could land his knife into Reaper’s eye socket.

The part of him still reeling with pain strongly contended with the idea.

Reaper paused, and then turned his shotgun to the side. Jack tensed, muscles coiled to spring, wary of Pepper gazing at the shotgun with a wide, unknowing half-smile. She kept panting close to the door. If the shot didn’t cave in her skull, the glass would at least carve new lines through her face and muzzle. She’d be blinded. Might lose the other ear.

“Where were you going to go?” Jack realised that Reaper nodded at him, and felt conscious of the rucksack and the patch of skin that was heated and sweating beneath it. Reaper changed his trajectory back to Jack. “Your friends aren’t here to pick up your slack any more. The city’s in lockdown – no one in or out.”

“But you stayed,” said Jack wryly, “just for me.”

Reaper tilted his head and fired. Jack jumped, skittering to his left and clawing the ground. His ears rang.

The floor to his right was scorched and splintered.

“For your dog,” said Reaper, and then the shotgun burst into smoke that was sucked into his arm.

Reaper reached and unlocked the balcony door. Pepper rushed in and circled Reaper with a wagging tail, sniffing at his feet, making small whimpers that Jack failed to interpret between curiosity and discomfort. The cat jumped through as well, using Pepper’s distraction to head towards the kitchen behind Jack.

Reaper’s hesitation was slight, but Jack filed it away, along with the way that Reaper used the flat of his palm to stroke Pepper’s head, claws lifted clear but still crooked.

“Take off the bag.”

Jack bit back a growl, clenching his teeth around his own demand: _what do you want_. He had a feeling that Reaper wouldn’t answer him anyway. His pistol was a little louder, a little harder to ignore. Shame that it was a few metres away from him on the floor.

Reaper shrugged, as if listening to his thoughts arrange into pathways and outcomes. “You’re welcome to try something stupid. Wouldn’t be the first time.” His fingers danced around Pepper’s head.

Jack slipped the rucksack off his shoulders and slid it across the floor to Reaper’s feet.

“Careful,” he said, his voice rough, “you might miss your ticket out of here.”

Reaper didn’t bother to bend down, but he did laugh again. His shoulders shook, mocking a shrug. “Assuming a lot of things there, Morrison.” A curl of smoke opened the rucksack, and Jack flinched as the cat jumped into his field of view to delve into its contents.

Pepper whined, looking to Jack as if asking permission to finally capture her prey.

“Like what?” he said, watching the cat tear out his ‘76’ jacket.

“That Talon has a say in what I do.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” snarled Jack, hoping that the bite in his tone hid the fear. Tucked into the jacket, one skin under the other so that the sleeves and hems were aligned, was the hoodie. Its hood flopped over the jacket’s collar as the cat pulled it out. “You’re just a _mercenary_ – under some sort of sordid contract, but under your own terms, right? Not at all a remorseless assassin who just happens to obey Talon’s every order.”

He heard a huff, and wondered if Reaper was amused or irritated yet.

He continued, “My bad. I didn’t expect Talon to be so lenient with their leash.”

“I like my independence.” Reaper’s mask still faced him, even as the cat’s body was half-submerged in the rucksack. If it wanted snacks, Jack had more than enough cheese to go round in his fanny pack. Maybe Reaper knew. Maybe he feared the cat’s reaction to lactose.

Talon Agent: Cat. Death by lactose intolerance. It would have been funnier if it weren’t so ridiculous in the first place.

Then the cat prised something out: a thin, nondescript keycard. Liao’s prototype skeleton key, one of two. Jack’s pulse jittered with panic, but Reaper’s hand had found Pepper’s collar, and her small tugs and whines suggested that she was uncomfortable with his grip.

He dug his nails into the floor instead, clawing against an imaginary Reaper’s chest in lieu of rising upwards to tackle Reaper to the floor.

The cat clambered its way to Reaper’s shoulder and dropped the keycard into his right hand.

“Thanks, Jack,” drawled Reaper, holding it up to the light.

Jack lifted himself up into a kneel, clutching his side. “You’re welcome,” he said, gritting the words out from between his teeth.

Reaper laughed, the white cat butting its head affectionately against Reaper’s hood. “Not you. My cat’s called Jack.”

Jack grimaced. Out of all the things that should have died, his humour was first on the list.

The skeleton key degraded into smoke between Reaper’s fingers. Lost to the void. Jack tried not to keen with dismay. “I wondered how you were managing to creep around like a rat through the Watchpoints. You couldn’t keep your hands off our tech, could you?”

Still, Reaper released Pepper, and she bounded into Jack, nuzzling into his face and licking his cheek. Her entire body shook with her enthusiasm, and he envied her ignorance.

“Some pet you got there,” said Jack. Controlling Pepper had his back muscles burning with strain, but he held on. She kissed him with her snout for his efforts.

Reaper scoffed, and took a step forwards. Closing space. Ignoring the rucksack. Redundant?

“Jack here? Found him in the gutter, shaped him up into something worthwhile. Kinda like another pest in my life.”

He passed Jack, walking to the kitchen. The thudding tattoo of his boots rivalled Jack’s aggressive heartbeat, as he toured the space beyond Jack’s sight. A screech of tearing metal startled both Jack and Pepper; he whipped round with his arms tight around her, keeping her back, only to find Reaper piercing a tin of tuna with his claws.

Jack dove backwards and dragged the pistol into his grip. Reaper continued to prise off the tin lid as Jack aimed at him.

“Take your best shot.” The cat slipped from Reaper’s shoulders to sniff at the tuna, now exposed and left on the countertop. Pepper, roused by the fishy smell, approached the counter, until Jack called, “Pepper, تعالي هنا.” Reaper threw the lid into the bin, and then canted his head at him. “Aren’t you better than that, Jackie?”

Something inside Jack snapped. “You don’t get to call me that.” He thumbed the safety off. Pepper sat by his side, attentive.

Reaper coughed: a bastardised laugh that spewed resentment in ashen clouds. “Are you fucking kidding me? You wanna act like you don’t know who I am, you fucking son of a bitch?”

The cat turned its head from the wisps of ash lifting from Reaper’s skin, but otherwise lapped at the tuna.

Jack flicked the muzzle of his pistol at Reaper. “All I know is that some homicidal maniac is parading in the corpse of _my best friend_.”

“You’re fucking blind,” hissed Reaper, smoking around the edges, “if you think that Gabriel Reyes was ever anything _close_ to your friend.”

“And I suppose you would know, huh? The machine using Reyes’ body as its own petri dish to cultivate on.” Jack sucked in a hot breath. “Reyes would never have fucking _slaughtered_ a dozen Overwatch agents. I know that much.”

“Your point? I’m not Reyes; you’re not Morrison. We’re both ghosts. I’m just doing a better job of working through it.”

“Maybe,” snarled Jack. “But all Morrison wanted was to protect Reyes. And that means giving his body some goddamn respect.”

He shot Reaper. Reaper’s mask shimmered, and the plaster behind him crackled, the gunshot echoing in the loud silence. Both the cat and Pepper scattered with fright. Jack released a breath, aware of his heaving chest and the tremor in his hands.

“ _That’s_ your idea of respect,” said Reaper, somewhat incredulous. Then he humphed. “If that was your best shot, I’m insulted.”

Jack braced himself for Reaper’s tackle, but gasped as Reaper’s fists pummelled his stomach instead. Then his surprise settled: CQC was physical, tangible, and eased the coils of frustration that usually wound underneath his skin.

Rational thought reasoned that the pain of Reaper’s metal fists shouldn’t have been cathartic, but that was why Jack was hitting back, too. Mostly defending, especially from Reaper’s right hook that rattled his brain when it collided with his cheek, too close to his temple.

Jack staggered, legs shaking as he poured his stamina into keeping himself upright. The only reason that he would go down now was if Reaper was beneath him. Jack gasped again as Reaper kicked his legs out and his vision flattened to white.

Sharp fingers yanked his head up – the only way he knew that he’d been slumped a moment before. He hung from the grip, a puppet in air dangling from the tension connected to its head.

His fanny pack was shuffled. The tension snapped. Jack crumpled and did not move, save to breathe.

He listened to the words that dribbled into his ear, thick with emotion, and it took every ounce of strength to redirect his thoughts into withholding those words, safeguarding them for later when he would be coherent.

Because he knew he wasn’t going to die now. His body was a broken mess, but it would heal; Reaper would give him that opportunity.

Call it a simple gut feeling, accompanied by the blue and green shapes that streaked through his whitened vision. The contours of the apartment refined into solid shapes, yet colourless compared to the lights of Tracer and Lúcio.

Glass shattered, and Jack flailed in the desperate hope of catching Pepper, if she was even nearby and not already diced by falling glass.

But he met flesh, warm flesh, which squeezed his hand and tugged upwards, aggravating his left shoulder socket.

He was sure that he screamed, but it was just as muffled as the low bass throbbing in his ears and the splintering echo of glass and the buzzes of time splitting.

 

-

 

_This is who you’ve become? I’m so fucking disappointed, Jack. You weren’t a challenge in Egypt, and you’re not one now. Do you want this? Do you want to die? ‘Cause I think you do and that – that insults me most of all. ‘Cause you don’t know what it’s like to die._

Like the end of a recording, Jack found that emerging from unconsciousness cut the sounds in his head: the words that he’d filed away, when they’d been hissed by Reaper.

It wasn’t silence in the waking world, but after the voice chastising him and reverberating within the confines of his mind, everything seemed muted. Jack still groaned at the beeping of a heart monitor, distant conversation, engine humming, and air conditioning.

Only the muscles in his face responded to his will at first. The rest was a tide of aches and pulses of numbness, melded to the curved bed – likely a gurney – beneath him. His breath cooled the naked skin of his chest, but his trousers were still intact; bandages and gel swathed across his torso and limbs.

Reaper’s old shotgun blast had been tended to, the scars and bruises concealed. His muscles felt atrophied; he could barely crane his neck a centimetre forwards without gasping.

The ceiling was separated by ridges and lit yellow. Looming to his left were old crates of Overwatch cargo. A tablet was balanced on top, as well as various banana skins and a biotic rifle. The yellow biotic rounds lined by the rifle’s barrel amused him when compared to the banana skins. If banana turned out to be a constituent of Ana’s biotic fluid, then he would happily devote the rest of his life towards a potassium-orientated five-a-day.

He blinked twice, and then ground his teeth in another groan. Ana’s rifle was there.

“Oh!”

Jack squinted down his nose, where Winston, Ana, and Lena sat at the other end of the cargo hold. Their surprise lasted only one second before Lena blinked to his side, unhindered by any shrapnel that had previously sat in her thigh. Her eyes gleamed, cheeks a little flushed, and Jack wondered whether Ana had needed to say anything before Lena had cried.

“You’re up!” said Lena happily. She rested on the handles to the side of his bed, confirming it to be a gurney.

Then loud barking and the clicking of claws interrupted her, and Jack let out a long, relieved breath through his nose as Pepper jumped up on his other side, her tongue lolling, panting and whining when she craned her neck for pets.

“Careful!” Winston lumbered into view, frowning as he tried to guide Pepper away from the equipment with large, open palms. “Lena, please, don’t excite her-”

Jack swallowed thickly, his face burning in the open air. Lena’s smile stayed true. Behind her, Ana stood, resting on cargo with her arms folded and reassurance in her unwavering gaze, with Pepper sitting restlessly next to her.

“It’s good to see you, sir,” said Lena.

There it was. She even had the gall to salute.

In lieu of hiding his face or jumping out of the shuttle to freefall his way out of shame, Jack closed his eyes. His gut might as well have been plummeting through the air at terminal velocity for all of the nausea he was feeling. The darkness offered a moment of composure, if only to listen to Winston’s movements as he mumbled to himself and adjusted the machines, and Pepper panted beside him.

“Commander Morrison, sir?”

He sighed and opened his eyes. Lena’s smile was failing, and her arm had fallen slack to her side.

“Jack. It’s just Jack.”

“Never to me, sir,” declared Lena, leaning a little more over Jack’s gurney. “Back in Numbani, I wasn’t sure, because you look and sound so _different_ , but then we tracked Reaper to your apartment, and we found the tactical visor in your bag and your jacket on the floor-”

“Do you have it?” he said.

“Yes, sir.” She ducked, and then brought up his rucksack, with the jacket-hoodie poking out through the unzipped top compartment. “We packed everythin’ we could-”

“How long have I been out?”

“Twelve hours, thirty-three minutes. Sir,” added Winston, peeking over his glasses. He removed the tablet sitting on top of the cargo and swiped the screen.

When he brought it to Jack’s chest, Jack tracked the shuttle’s movements as an icon crossing through Spain and into Gibraltar. Its path studded through Spain and France into the UK, and then to Numbani near Lake Chad.

“You were anaesthetised to aid your recovery from Reaper’s assault,” said Winston, taking the tablet with him as he moved to the other side of the shuttle. “Your body has demonstrated accelerated signs of healing, but I also had to extract traces of Reaper’s nanobiotic residue from your injuries.” Winston coughed lightly. “It was a…slow procedure. Surgery is not my field of expertise.”

“It would’ve been impossible without Captain Amari!” said Lena eagerly, tucking the rucksack underneath the gurney. She rocked on her feet, swaying the gurney slightly, and Jack gritted his teeth. Ana stepped into view. Lena shook her head. “I can’t believe it! Soldier: Seventy-Six and the Shrike, two international vigilantes-”

“What happened?” said Jack, more to Ana than Lena, who paused to let Ana speak.

Ana’s brow knotted. “Talon escaped with the Doomfist gauntlet, and Reaper almost beat you into a coma. But as Lena said, she and Lúcio followed Reaper and expelled him onto the street, where he and his feline accomplice retreated to be exfiltrated by the RZ jet. Your tactical visor is still functioning, as are your weapons. All additional devices are secure in my custody.”

Jack rested back. The true incriminations hidden within Ozols’ tablet and phone, although still in their possession, would be a nightmare to unlock without the skeleton key. Their defences were few and far between, too.

“Ana,” said Jack, “the pack around my waist – did you-”

“It’s here.” Lena held it up, concerned.

“Check the biggest pocket. There should be a shield barrier in there.”

Lena opened the pocket and turned it inside out. A few crumbs clung to the lining.

“Shield barrier?” Winston returned to Jack’s side. “The one that Reaper deployed in the alleyway?”

“Yeah. You took it?”

Winston hummed with disappointment. “No. I actually wanted to inspect its origins. The shield shape resembles the field parameters of an OR-Fifteen’s shield, but on a narrower scale – designed for an individual rather than a crowd. An intriguing design.”

Jack cursed inwardly, as the ghosts of claws slithered around his waist and pricked through his shirt, sketching over the scars of the shotgun from mere days before.

“I’m glad we found you in time, sir.” Lena beamed. “Lúcio and I had to race from the airport when we realised that neither of us had seen Reaper board the jet. Your place was a right mess when we found it.”

Reaper had recovered his shield and Liao’s skeleton key. Talon had taken the Doomfist gauntlet. Akande Ogundimu would have his weapon back, and no security measures could resist the calavera.

“…at the airport, but it’s not like we have a billing address, so there goes any positive press.”

Regardless of resources, Jack and Ana had more than one lead. The various names on Ozols’ list held as much potential as they did mystery.

“Still! Lúcio said that he’d put in a good word for us! I invited him to join us – you know, build up the ranks of a new and improved Overwatch, but he said his place is still in Numbani. He’s still gonna conduct his concert on Friday, which is _awesome_ and – oh, you should have-! You didn’t get a proper introduction with him!”

In turn, Jack could hardly see Reaper deigning to give he and Ana the information for free. Yet Ozols’ correspondence about the ‘float’ would have led them to Numbani anyway, even if Ana hadn’t have picked up on the occasion and doubted the security of the Doomfist gauntlet. So really, there could only have been one outcome…

“I think what he’s doing is incredible, especially as the city needs him now more than ever, considering what Doomfist and Talon have done-”

“Lena,” said Jack coldly.

Lena fell quiet, biting her lip. She released the gurney and pointed towards the cockpit. “I’ll go check on the autopilot.” She stepped away with a small skip. “You can never be too careful, you know?”

She disappeared into the cockpit, the door sliding behind her. Jack turned to Winston, whose expression turned abashed. He pushed up his glasses again.

“I, uh, suppose I should…check. On Tracer. Her accelerator. And the shuttle. Sir, ma’am.”

Pepper stood up to free more space for Winston’s exit, and then he, too, squeezed into the cockpit after Lena. Pepper wandered over to Ana’s side and was rewarded affectionately for her presence.

“How’s she been?” said Jack, wincing as he rolled his palm over, the pain shooting up his arm. Pepper licked it consolingly. “I bought her a jar of peanut butter but she never got to eat it in the end.”

“I’m sure that Winston has some to spare in Gibraltar.” Ana smiled and took a seat on one of the cargo boxes, her movements smooth despite the shuttle’s slight shuddering.

Jack hummed. “What you said before, Ana – there’s something stirring in London.”

She looked at him, her eyes lidded with disapproval. “But nothing concrete. You wanted to find the source of the purple skull, yes?”

The calavera. The sky-coder. “I think _that’s_ even less concrete than London,” remarked Jack. “I’ve never had much success with tracking hackers – and this one seems to be the one of the best.”

Ana sighed, more contemplative than frustrated, and pulled a disc out from the inside of her jacket. When blue holographic light flushed her face, Jack relented to curiosity and squinted.

The small figure, no bigger than his hand, smiled mischievously at him – like he was still Uncle Jackie, personal fighter jet and occasional landing zone for the pilot to be, shoulders broad enough to be her ejector seat. His throat closed up, and it took a moment for him to regain his voice through the pain.

“Ah,” he said eloquently. The letter – so long ago – made sense. “Has she contacted you back?”

“How would she?” said Ana quietly, as though it would keep the bitterness from her voice. “We’ve been travelling, and I gave her no details.”

He leant back. A moment passed – his own hesitation. “Will she…be there?”

“Gibraltar?” Ana shook her head, and then said crisply, “I would at least hope that she has distanced herself from Helix Security. Their reputation is tenuous in light of recent events. Besides, let’s not forget _why_ I went to London.”

Jack scowled, raising his arm a centimetre off the bed before dropping it with a huff. Ana understood the motion and drew out the tablet and key fob, but held them out of reach.

“C’mon, Ana,” he said, in a voice that was definitely not a whine. “You’re the one who volunteered to go alone in the first place.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She pointedly waved the key fob.

Jack huffed, bringing his hand back to his side, sagging with enough exaggeration to make it look like annoyance over desperation. “I know. Reaper.”

“Glad your memory’s still sharp,” said Ana. Jack bit down a retort. “We know what’s on the tablet, and we know that _this_ special key unlocked it. So-”

“Why did Reaper _want_ us to find it, yeah, I’ve been thinking the same thing.” He hated himself immediately as he spoke, chiding himself for his impatience. He hadn’t heard her voice in six years, and now he was cutting over her.

Yet he bristled all the same at the surprise in her voice when she said, “Have you?” He looked away. “You seemed more preoccupied with handling Pepper.”

“I wonder who told me to look after her in the first place.”

“She was supposed to help you focus,” said Ana patiently.

Jack scoffed. “Bullshit. The only reason Pepper’s still standing is because she knows how to tear through a man’s arm. If I hadn’t had to _babysit_ her-”

“I’m here to watch your back, Jack.” Ana stared at him as he shook his head, and then gave him the tablet and pressed the key fob into his palm. “I’m here to support you, just as I expect you to support me. Like the old days.”

He glanced down at the technology in his hands. “Right.”

“There’s a hole in you,” she said gently, “that I cannot fill.”

“Yeah?” he snapped, the fob biting into the contours of his palm as he squeezed it. “What’s that?”

“Guilt.”

Jack scoffed. Just like Ana to be pinpoint accurate. He tucked the fob away into his trouser pocket and unlocked the tablet. The files were labelled in code, but their file sizes indicated which contained the most media.

When he realised that Ana was still waiting for an answer, he sighed and shot her a glare.

“And you think a _dog’s_ gonna do something about that?”

“Not with the cause so much as its effects.”

That was one big-ass can of worms that Jack did _not_ have the time to open. Ana must have caught the displeasure on his face, for she changed tack with a small smile.

“The tablet is in your hands now. We can stay in Gibraltar to see what else transpires,” she said.

Jack studied a couple of files, and the profiles of half-familiar agents glared back at him. “We need to figure out Reaper’s game. Ozols’ emails would have led us to Numbani regardless of whether we’d suspected an attack on the Doomfist gauntlet.”

“Meaning that Gabriel was expecting us to come,” said Ana, “and made sure that we would have an incentive either way: our own initiative to protect the Doomfist gauntlet, or tracing Ozols’ emails about the ‘float’.”

Jack ground his teeth.

“He’s one step ahead of us.” She almost sounded smug.

“We’re going after him,” he decided.

The cockpit door opened. “After who?” chirped Lena. She lingered in the doorway, on the cusp between professionalism and amiability, her smile balancing both.

Jack opened his mouth to rebuff her – the less she knew, the better – but Ana beckoned her over with a wave. Lena hopped up next to Ana on the cargo, and Ana offered her a sweet from her pouch.

Alerted by the crinkling of plastic, Pepper sidled up to Lena’s feet, ear pricked with attention, and sat down. Jack could see her puppy eyes even as she faced the other way. Lena laughed and cooed, stroking Pepper’s head. Pepper still waited patiently for a treat.

“What did you say her name was again?”

“Pepper,” said Jack, amused by Pepper’s insistent nudges for affection from Lena.

She glanced up at him with a grin. “Aw! Because she’s so sweet?”

Jack frowned, and quickly shut his jaw when he realised he’d left it gaping. “No,” he said.

“Oh.” Realisation caused Lena’s eyes to widen. “You mean like, chilli peppers.”

“No. Pepper. Ground pepper.”

“Oh. Not bell peppers.”

“No.” How did she even – what did she-?

Lena and Ana shared a look, and Ana grumbled. “Don’t ask me.”

“Well, she’s adorable,” said Lena affirmatively, and Pepper whined when she realised that Ana’s generosity had its limits.

Lena sucked on her sweet in silence, glancing at the tablet resting on Jack’s chest. Fortunately, Ana understood the strings behind silence: what emotions pulled taut or lay intimately slack. Jack could only feel them shift as she tested them.

“You’ve grown quite formidable, Lena,” said Ana, half on her phone, half looking over to her side to gauge Lena’s reaction. Jack wished for his phone. “Hundreds of Numbani citizens owe their lives to you and Lúcio.” As Lena beamed, she continued, “You mentioned recruiting Lúcio. Have you reached out to any other agents?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe it!” Lena bobbed up and down. “Have you heard of Mei-Ling Zhou, the climatologist?”

“She worked at Ecopoint: Antarctica,” said Jack, and Lena nodded approvingly. Ana raised an eyebrow at him and smirked.

“I’ve been reading her blog posts, and I was astounded by the tragedy of her experiences,” said Ana. “As I understand it, she has been in contact with Winston.”

“Yeah! She popped round Gibraltar a while back, and now she’s in the Himalayas – I think.” Lena pulled a face, and Jack hid his smile at the immaturity of it. “Her messages are kind of…infrequent. Signal’s bad.

“But speaking of which! Genji!”

Jack frowned. Genji Shimada’s formal resignation had been surprising, but understandable, authenticated by Dr. Ziegler’s recommendation for physical recovery. His extensive cyberisation had been a novelty, one that kept Reyes awake at night. Dr. Ziegler’s notes often found their way of hovering over Reyes’ desk, until they collapsed into a folder beneath Reyes’ hands as Jack approached, just as seamless a transition as Reyes’ concern to neutral geniality.

Genji Shimada had kept Reyes awake and worried more times than the rest of Blackwatch – barring McCree. It was always a contest between him and McCree.

“What did he want?” said Jack.

“Is he all right?” asked Ana.

Lena laughed. “Yeah, he’s fine! More than fine! He’s the apprentice – or some’ing like that – to an ex-Shambali monk, Tekhartha Zenyatta!”

Ana sighed. It would have passed as exasperated, had Jack not remembered the fury in her eye as she told him of Mondatta’s assassination.

“They toured the world together for a bit, but Genji was actually one of the first to respond to Overwatch’s recall!” Not Winston’s, mused Jack, but Overwatch’s. Official, ceremonial. “He went to Hanamura – you must’ve seen in the news, that li’l scuffle at Shimada Castle – and then headed over to America.”

“For what?” said Jack curiously.

“For who,” said Ana with a smile. Jack studied her expression of amusement. Not anyone dead, then – Ana was light-hearted, but found no pleasure in robbing the dead of their dignity through jibes.

“He did mention paying a visit to Deadlock Gorge,” mused Lena, which pretty much settled any lingering debates on who would warrant a visit from a cyborg ninja, other than a former enemy of Blackwatch’s or his family. “Probably ol’ Blackwatch business.”

Her face lit up. “He’s really changed, you know,” she said earnestly, and Jack raised his eyebrows. “He’s a different man now: wiser, calmer. But,” she added with a dreamy sigh, “the memes are still strong.”

“We may have to pay him a visit,” said Ana, a glint in her eye, just as Winston re-entered the cargo hold.

Both she and Lena twisted on the cargo to watch as Pepper jumped up and nudged into him; he rumbled a low laugh, and spoke without turning his head from her.

“Five minutes until landing at Watchpoint: Gibraltar.” When he finally faced Jack, his gaze was level. “There won’t be much fanfare, I’m afraid, since we’d like to keep under the radar. Still, Athena has prepared us refreshments.”

“Sounds ace!” said Lena, bounding off the cargo. “Need a hand, sir?”

She extended her right to Jack, and he heaved himself onto his elbows. The tablet slipped onto the bed. His bones creaked something fierce, and the air he hissed between his teeth wet his lips. But his limbs still operated, even through their loud complaints, and he sat up with his hands steadied on the gurney’s handles.

His right leg went first; he swung with the grace of an old clock’s hands jerking round to meet the seconds, his knee catching on the gurney’s handle as he shuffled down for his foot to reach the floor. A wave of nausea sent his vision swelling, and he paused to breathe and let it settle, his other leg halfway off the bed.

Lena blinked into view, still offering a hand. Her gaze was soft.

He groaned and grabbed her forearm, clutching the hard vambrace that supported him whilst he balanced himself onto two feet.

“Thanks,” he managed, and Lena smiled.

“Aye aye.”

Pepper rushed over with a bark, bumping into his legs until he scrubbed her head and flank. Then she danced over to Lena, who crooned and smoothed her hands over Pepper’s scars. Winston busied himself with his tablet, from which snippets of a female voice murmured between Lena’s loud exclamations of praise.

Jack looked to Ana, who rounded the gurney to nudge him.

“We’re home,” she said, and handed him the tablet.

He bowed his head. “It’s not home. Not yet. Would’ve been better to let it all go,” he admitted, earning Ana’s huff, “but I’m not complaining. We can recover supplies here before we move on to the US.”

As he pulled his belongings out from underneath the gurney, Ana said, “Sounds like a change of plans to me. You want to follow Genji instead?”

“He and McCree might recognise some of the faces on Ozols’ list.” Jack stared at the jacket-hoodie, weighing in his hands, before yielding to its plush insides and pulling it over his head. The layers hugged his skin, but when he dipped his nose into the hoodie’s fabric, his stomach warmed. Ana straightened his ‘76’ jacket sleeves and flicked the dust from his shoulders. “Thanks. If anyone knows about Blackwatch’s role in Overwatch’s destruction, it’ll be them: the two closest to Reyes.”

Ana returned back to the left side of the gurney and slung her rifle over her shoulders, pocketing the biotic rounds in a pouch. Jack’s gut churned as the altitude of the shuttle dropped, sending Pepper into a frenzy, much to Winston’s exasperation.

He tucked Ozols’ tablet into the rucksack and carefully shouldered it. He strapped his pistol, complete with its holster, back onto his thigh, and hefted his pulse rifle into both hands from where it had lain beneath the gurney. Its weight was grounding.

“We’ll find the truth,” promised Ana, standing away from the shuttle doors under Winston’s instruction. Jack stood next to her, and Lena beside him, Pepper restrained by her collar.

The shuttle jumped as it touched down, and the doors opened to the rolling rush of waves, midnight light cutting into Gibraltar’s promontories and the ‘WP-G’ printed on one of the towers. Cargo and forklift trucks sat under tarpaulins, weeds crawling up their heels. In a farewell to those who had abandoned it, or perhaps in greeting of the newcomers, the Overwatch flag waved in the landward breeze.

Jack smelled the sea salt and grimaced, inconvenienced by the sharp pain in his chest that lacked a biological source.

Compared to those wracking his muscles, however, it was a good pain. Home was a good pain.

And it was Pepper who left the shuttle first, tugging herself out of Lena’s grip, barking and sniffing and running around, interested by the traces of ghosts long gone and another new world away from Giza. Winston cried out and lurched after her before she could jump off the edge of the cliffs.

Lena turned to Jack, giggled with a two-fingered salute, and then blinked in a blinding curve of light out onto solid ground.

He and Ana both stepped out with a mutual sigh, Jack insulated from the night by Reyes’ hoodie beneath his jacket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for now! Thank you so much for reading - special thanks to Zyloa, whose positivity and encouraging comments made me weep with happiness and really drove this fic to completion. You're the best!
> 
> I'm aware that there's a lot of unanswered questions left at the end - this fic was going to be _much_ longer, but I didn't have the stamina for it :/
> 
> That said, I still have tons of ideas, and I know where the rest of the story goes. If you have any questions, or you just wanna say hi, come see me on my [tumblr](http://samiltonbattmann.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Have a wonderful day, and thanks again for reading!
> 
> (P.S. The AI portable cache isn't a forgotten point - it would have come up in the future, and will do if/when I decide to continue this)


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